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inthelonelycoolbeforedawn · 3 years

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Harringrove April Days 23 & 26: Picnic & Easy

Harrington & Holloway had a reputation as one of the best law firms in all of Indiana.

It was just as well-known for its annual company picnic.

The picnic was a tradition begun years ago, when Edward Harrington and Tom Holloway first started the firm. It had grown over time from a BBQ at the park to a full catered event at the Hawkins fairgrounds, complete with live entertainment and various activities for everyone from kids to adults.

As the boss' son, Steve was expected to attend every year. It was okay when he was a kid and spent his time playing with Heather, Tommy, and everyone else. But as he got older and friendships changed or disappeared, and the 'happy family' facade his parents insisted on in public became harder to maintain, the picnic became more of a chore, even something to dread.

Leaning against an oak tree at the edge of the fairgrounds, away from the crowds and music, Steve's thoughts drifted to last year's picnic. Last year he'd brought Nancy. She was his first serious girlfriend, beautiful and intelligent and fearless. She got into an argument with one of the junior partners about inequality in the criminal justice system and it ended with the man stomping off like a child throwing a temper tantrum. Steve couldn't quite follow the discussion but at that moment he knew he loved her.

Over the next few months, though, they'd drifted apart. Nancy was ambitious and sure of herself. Steve wanted to do good, to be something more than his father's son, handed everything as he drifted through life. He just didn't know what that 'more' was.

So he hadn't been entirely surprised when they broke up. They stayed friends, and when Nancy announced she was dating Jonathan Byers he was genuinely happy for them. They shared similar interests and were a good match, better than he and Nancy had ever been.

He just kept hoping he'd meet his perfect match, that his true love was somewhere out there, waiting for him.

"Steve!"

Heather's excited voice pulled him out of his thoughts, and he straightened up as she and Robin hurried towards him, hand in hand, both of them grinning.

"Oh my god, dingus, we were looking everywhere for you," Robin said.

"I just needed a break," Steve said. He rolled his eyes. "I can only hear 'why aren't you going to college this year', 'do you have a girlfriend', 'what about your career plans' so many times before I snap."

Heather and Robin exchanged a look, then their smiles became even wider.

"Hey, what's that?" Steve asked, noticing something on their faces.

Heather tilted her head to give him a better view of the rainbow painted on her right cheek. It matched the one on Robin's.

"That's why we were looking for you," Heather said, her dark eyes sparkling. "You've got to get your face painted, too."

"Nah, I don't think so," Steve said.

"No, you really do," Robin said, taking his hand and tugging. "C'mon!"

"Okay, Jesus," Steve said, letting himself be led.

He perked up a bit as they walked, buoyed by Robin and Heather's enthusiasm. Heather was like a sister to him, and he and Robin had become good friends in the two months Heather and Robin had been dating. Being around them never failed to cheer him up.

They dragged him to a tent where several people, mostly little kids and a few teenagers, waited to get their faces painted.

Steve felt awkward being the oldest person in line, but Robin and Heather stood with him. And when they reached the front and he got a good look at the face paint artist, he forgot all about the other people around him.

The face painter was a guy who looked about his age, blonde curls pulled up in a messy bun. He was wearing a red shirt with two buttons undone that showed off his muscular build. But he appeared surprisingly gentle as he drew a glittery flower on a little girl's cheek. Steve could see his tongue poking out between his teeth ever so slightly as he concentrated.

The guy finished and held up a mirror so the girl could see her flower. She grinned, then ran off to show her mother, waiting nearby. The guy looked up, a big smile on his face to greet his next customer.

So distracted by staring at the face painter, Steve didn't realize he was the next customer until Robin nudged him.

"Get going, dingus," she said, Heather giggling beside her.

Steve tried to glare at them and ended up almost tripping over his feet as he crossed the short distance and dropped unceremoniously into the chair near the face painter.

"Well, well, well," the guy said, aiming his blinding smile straight at Steve. His eyes were bright blue, almost the color of the summer sky, and Steve noticed he had a small gold hoop in one ear. "What can I do for you?"

Steve realized he probably should have thought of something. "Um...I'm not sure?"

"I've got some designs here you can pick from," the guy said, reaching for a photo album. "Or I can come up with something just for you."

Steve gulped.

"Uh, surprise me, I guess," he said. "Just, nothing too wild?"

The guy's grin turned softer. "Don't worry. I'll take good care of you."

He studied Steve for a moment, as if thinking, then picked up a brush.

"Turn your head," he said.

Steve obeyed, shifting in the chair so the left side of his face was exposed. He almost jumped at the first touch of the cool paint against his skin but as the guy worked, he relaxed. The guy's hand was steady but gentle, and occasionally Steve felt his breath against his cheek when he leaned in to touch up a spot.

He felt a twinge of disappointment when the guy set his brush down, sat back, and said, "All done. Ready to see?"

Steve managed a grin. "Yep."

The guy lifted his mirror. Steve was almost afraid to look, but as soon as he saw his face he couldn't tear his eyes away.

A dolphin in shades of blue and gray curled along his forehead, past his eye, and down his cheek. Dots and swirls of white and lighter blue created waves around it.

"Wow," Steve breathed. He looked at himself again, then back at the guy. "You're really good, man."

The guy's eyes widened slightly, as if he was surprised. "Thanks." The blinding, charming grin appeared again. "It's easy to work on a pretty face like yours though."

Steve blurted it out before he thought.

"Like mine? Have you ever looked in a mirror?"

The guy laughed, still watching him.

"Once or twice," he said, teasing.

Steve knew he should get going, find Robin and Heather and let the next kid in line have their turn.

"Well." He opened his mouth to thank the guy again, but instead he heard himself say, "You get a break or something, right? Do you wanna grab something to eat?"

"That'd be great," the guy said. "I'm Billy, by the way."

"Steve." Steve automatically held out his hand, years of polite introductions and handshakes drilled into him, and just as quickly wished he could take it back.

But Billy clasped it in his own hand, giving his fingers a gentle squeeze. "Nice to meet you, Steve. Let me just clean up here."

Steve waited while he set out a sign saying 'Back in 30 minutes' and put away his paints, brushes, and other supplies.

They set off towards the food tent, falling into conversation as if they'd known each other for years. By the time they sat down at a picnic table with ice-cold cans of soda and plates piled with burgers, salads, and potato chips, Steve had learned Billy had recently moved from California with his stepmom and stepsister.

"Susan's got family here," he explained. "So she came here to be close to them and away from my asshole father. I was lucky she got custody and brought me too."

"Do you miss it?" Steve asked. "I mean, coming from California to good old Hawkins - that's gotta be tough."

"Yeah, it is," Billy said. "I miss the ocean. Surfing in the early morning when there's not many people around - there's nothing else like it. Sometimes I'd even see dolphins. Once one swam right up next to me." His eyes shone with excitement. "That was the most incredible thing I've ever seen."

"Wow." Steve used his fork to poke at his potato salad. "So is that why you drew a dolphin on me?"

"That, and I just like them." Billy looked directly at Steve, a small smile on his lips. "They're smart, playful. Beautiful."

Steve stuffed a forkful of salad in his mouth and chewed while he considered what to say. When he'd swallowed he took a deep breath.

"I think there are some dolphins at the Indianapolis Zoo," he said, trying to sound casual. "Maybe we could go and see them sometime. If you wanted."

Billy's smile widened. "I'd like that, pretty boy."

Steve smiled back.

When the Harrington & Holloway company picnic rolled around the following year, Steve wasn't there.

He was lying on a beach with Billy, the two of them celebrating the end of their first year at UCLA with an entire weekend doing nothing but surfing, hanging out at the beach, and having sex on every available surface in their dorm room.

Steve still couldn't quite believe how easy it was being with Billy, how easily everything had fallen into place in the past year. After hitting it off at the picnic he and Billy began dating and were soon deeply in love. He'd picked up some pamphlets at the zoo the first time they went there, and that led to an interest in environmental issues and conservation. He'd applied to environmental science programs when Billy applied to art school, and they both got into UCLA.

Robin and Heather, who were both studying social work in Chicago, had been thrilled when Steve told them about his plans to move to California and go to school with Billy. The four of them had double-dated several times during the year, and they were excited that Steve had not only found a loving boyfriend but an academic and career path he was passionate about. They'd promised to come for a visit over the summer, and Steve couldn't wait to see them.

Even Nancy was happy for him when she heard the news. She'd hugged him and said good for you, Steve Harrington with a big smile that made Steve glow with pride. He talked to her and Jonathan once in a while, and he was glad they were happy at NYU, supporting various causes and fighting for what they believed in.

The only people who weren't happy with his decisions were his parents. But they couldn't stop him, and although Steve still loved them, he didn't want to live their life or the life they'd planned for him.

"What are you thinking about, baby?" Billy murmured, rolling onto his side to run his fingertip up Steve's arm.

"Us." Steve flapped his hand to indicate everything around them. "This."

He turned his head towards his boyfriend and pressed a kiss to Billy's lips, the action familiar from repetition and even sweeter for its familiarity.

They smiled at each other when they parted, then settled back onto their towels and laid there holding hands, comfortable and content.

#harringrove #ficlet #my writing #harringroveapril #robin buckley/heather holloway #face painter billy #that's not an innuendo #he is a face paint artist in this au haha

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marshmellowedhues · 3 years

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The Couples' Discount

The thing is, Annabeth knows Percy.

Annabeth knows Percy from middle school, where he would shyly ask her for a spare pencil every day, his big green eyes flitting from the floor to her face and back to the floor, and his face as red as a tomato.

Annabeth knows Percy from high school junior year, where every lab session involved Percy running late into class from swim team practice, a ball of inexhaustible energy: his legs continuously bouncing under the table as he leaned over to ask her what the atomic mass of carbon was for the third time that day.

Annabeth also knows Percy from across the hall at a freshman party in college, where her friend Jason and his friend Piper first locked eyes with each other and subsequently became inseparable.

Suffice to say, Annabeth is familiar with who Percy is. She just doesn’t think this level of familiarity is enough for her to engage in a conversation with him for five minutes, let alone share waffles with him for one hour.

Yet Percy is standing right in front of her, hands gripping the straps of his backpack as he waits for her response.

“You want us to go to Sveltes’ for waffles?” Annabeth’s right hand comes up to massage her temples as her laptop rests on her left arm.

“Blue ice cream waffles, Annabeth,” Percy emphasises. “Please?”

Anyone who knows Percy knows how much he likes his food blue - blue shakes, blue cakes, blue toppings and blue ice cream… Annabeth once saw his eyes light up when their high school Chemistry teacher told them they were making blue copper sulfate crystals. If Annabeth hadn’t kept an eye on Percy, she was pretty sure Percy would have tried his luck and eaten the crystals.

Annabeth steels herself and avoids Percy’s wide baby seal eyes (no, they’re not adorable at all, shut up) before replying, “No.”

Annabeth turns on her heels and walks down the courtyard as Percy chases after her, whisper-yelling, “But if they think we’re a couple, we can get the couples’ discount!”

Annabeth stops short, and Percy almost bumps into her from the momentum.

“What?”

Percy laughs shakily, before biting his lips, the blush surging from the base of his neck to his cheeks. There goes the tomato, Annabeth thinks with an odd sense of satisfaction. Percy opens his mouth and blurts out his words at the speed of a freight train.

“Yesterday was Valentines’ Day, and Sveltes’ has this wicked two-for-one ice cream waffles deal for couples which ends today, so the only way I can get these waffles is if you agree to…” Percy trails off, his lips pursed.

“Agree to what?”

Percy lifts his shoulders in a half-shrug as his face lifts with a timid half-smile. “Be my girlfriend for one hour?”

“Absolutely not. Can’t you ask anyone else? Piper?”

“Piper works there. Besides, Jason will kill me.”

Annabeth huffs. “Reyna?”

“Reyna will kill me.”

Annabeth snaps her fingers. “Hazel.”

Percy glances back at her, horrified. “I am not going in there looking like a pedophile.”

“We’re seventeen, Percy,” Annabeth grits out.

“She’s fourteen!”

Annabeth throws her hands up. “It’s a three-year difference.”

“That’s still illegal!”

“For what? Getting waffles?”

Annabeth glares at Percy for a few seconds, before Percy sighs in defeat.

“I just really want those waffles, Annabeth.” Percy mutters, training his eyes on the floor.

It makes total sense if she just walks away right now. He asked for something she doesn’t really want to give, and her homework awaits in her dorm. Though that isn’t due till next week, and today is only Tuesday… but she has stuff to do. Kind of.

Annabeth doesn’t know what went through her mind - given her final decision, probably nothing sane - but she hears herself say, “Fine. I’m free after classes at four.”

Percy looks up at her, his green eyes unfairly bright and filled with such a child-like hopefulness she almost felt the urge to slap him and stomp off in both embarrassment and confusion. He grabs both her hands in excitement. “Thank you so much, Annabeth. You will not regret this. I’ll treat you to that strawberry milkshake you like.”

“How do you know I like strawberry milkshake?”

For a moment, Percy’s eyes widens before he rushes out, “You told me sophomore year, okay, see you later, Annabeth!”

He turns and runs down the courtyard, leaving Annabeth to over analyse her very perplexing thoughts alone.

Despite Percy’s reassurances, Annabeth finds herself regretting her decision as Percy pulls the door of the cafe open for her. Annabeth steps in cautiously, cursing herself as she finds the place filled with couples. Maybe if she covered her face by resting her hand against the crown of her head, she could get away this entire hour without making eye contact with anyone she knew.

Luckily for them, they find a seat fairly quickly, and Annabeth busies herself with looking at the menu. She thinks there is a possibility they can just eat their waffles and leave without anyone noticing them, when a bright, excited voice calls out, “Percy!”

Before she could hide her face, Piper, decked in her Sveltes’ waitress uniform, walks towards them, her braided brown locks framing her face as her kaleidoscopic eyes shine in elation.

“And Annabeth’s here too,” Piper grins, then turns to Percy. “I thought you’d never work up the nerve to ask her out!”

Percy’s eyes widen comically. If Annabeth hadn’t felt her heart jump, she would have laughed at how quickly his neck turned red, along with his ears.

“To get the discount.” He blurts out, nodding meaningfully at Annabeth. She tilts her head to the side and raises one of her eyebrows challengingly, settling into a smirk. Percy’s face turns a darker shade of red as both his hands reach out to cup the back of his neck.

“Right, to get the discount,” Piper scoffs. “If that were the case, why did you call me last night--”

“I want the two blue ice-cream waffles and a strawberry milkshake with whipped cream and cinnamon in a large venti cup, please, now!” Percy almost yells.

Annabeth was about to shush him when she heard him recite her usual order. Piper nods and rolls her eyes, muttering something about “that ungrateful little idiot who asked me what he should wear today”.

“You know my order?” Annabeth asks as Percy breathes a sigh of relief. His head snaps up as he stutters, “I-I have a good memory.”

“Do you remember the atomic mass of carbon?”

He scoffs. “Of course, it’s 16.”

“That’s oxygen.”

Percy winces as Annabeth smirks. “So, you’ve been planning this for awhile, haven’t you?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Chase,” Percy shoots back. “I really just couldn’t find anyone else.”

Percy launches into a commentary about how waffles are just the best thing the world has ever created, don’t you agree? That quickly turned into an explanation of why he liked blue food so much.

“I placed last for my first swimming competition and my terrible stepfather laughed at me and said I was useless and it would be impossible for me to ever get an Olympic medal,” He shares with an easy smile, hands fiddling the napkin on the table. “So my mother baked a blue cake and told me nothing was impossible as long as I tried my best. A few years later, she divorced my stepfather and we never looked back.”

“That’s very inspirational.”

“I know, I should become a motivational speaker.” Percy replies sardonically.

Annabeth snorts. Conversations with Percy have always been easy, even during high school. Lab sessions were always filled with bad Percy jokes, the kind that out of anyone else’s mouth would have made her cringe and roll her eyes, but she found hilarious when Percy said it.

The good thing about Percy is, he never took himself or anyone else too seriously. He was genuine and self-deprecating, and never really dwelled on one problem for too long. But when he was really passionate about something, he could go on and on about it, and Annabeth finds that he makes even the most confusing marine biology concepts sound understandable.

It wouldn’t be the worst thing on earth to hear him talk about marine biology everyday, Annabeth thinks.

Percy stops short in his ramblings, and a nervous hand comes up to palm his neck. A nervous tick, Annabeth thinks. Cute. Then she feels like plunging her head into the confectionary’s refrigerator because what in the world was that about?

She jolts back to reality when Percy chuckles. “I think I’m talking too much about my major. How about yours? How’s architecture going?”

“Marine biology’s interesting, especially when you explain it.” Annabeth reassures him. “Right now, we’re covering Greco-Roman architecture, and it’s the best thing in the world.”

Percy grins and nods at her to continue. So she launches into an explanation of Doric and Ionic columns and gushes a bit too enthusiastically about the wonders of the Roman aqueducts. Percy listens attentively and asks questions appropriately, and Annabeth thinks that it would be easy to go on more waffle dates with him in the future.

The waffles and milkshake arrive before she can entertain that terrifying thought. Percy oohs and ahhs at the blue ice cream waffles and she laughs at the number of photos he takes of his waffles.

Annabeth is digging into her waffles when a low, hearty voice asks, “Percy?”

Percy’s face brightens as a tall, burly boy stops at their table. “Beckendorf, what are you doing here?”

“Getting waffles with his girlfriend,” Another sweeter voice replies teasingly. “And who’s this, Percy?”

Annabeth glances up to see a petite girl in a pastel pink summer dress with her hands tucked around the arm of a muscular boy in a football jersey and shorts. The girl looks vaguely familiar, and judging by the way her eyes narrow at Annabeth in recognition, they definitely know each other.

“Aren’t you from my psych class? Annabeth, right?” The girl asks.

Annabeth panics slightly, racking her brain for a name. “Silena Beauregard?”

“Yep, and this is my boyfriend.” Silena smiles. “I didn’t know you guys were a thing.”

Annabeth starts, “We’re n--”

“Yeah, we, um, you know,” Percy fumbles with a smile. “We are a thing.”

Annabeth frowns at Percy, who glances at her with pleading eyes.

“How did you guys meet?” The boyfriend - Beckendorf, Annabeth recalls Percy saying - asks.

Before Annabeth could glare at Percy, he replies, “Oh, we actually grew up together, attended the same middle and high school. And as it turns out, the same college too.”

Percy grins as Annabeth forces out a short laugh. Silena cooes at them and turns to Beckendorf, “That is so sweet. When did you guys fall in love?”

Percy chokes on his cup of water, a sure blush forming at his neck. Annabeth maintains her smile as her mind runs a mile a minute while Percy stutters out, “Uh, um, you know, like normal people --”

“Two months ago,” Annabeth interjects. Percy looks back at her, confused. “We were having a double date with our friends,” Annabeth shrugs convincingly. “He was really easy to talk to, and I thought he was really sweet.”

Percy gazes at her, bewildered and with a little bit of wonderment in his eyes that she didn’t understand. What she said was true, Piper and Jason had forced them to a double date, simply because, in their words, they were “the two luckiest people with two of the loneliest friends”.

Annabeth and Percy had protested, but she had to admit that the night had been much more bearable with both of them commenting on the ostentatious fashion choices of some of the diners. Without him, Annabeth would have been stuck watching Jason and Piper hold hands from across the table and gaze into each others’ eyes every few seconds.

Silena grins. “And how about you, Percy?”

Percy blinks and bits his lip. “She makes me happy.” His eyes flit nervously from Annabeth’s face back to the couple.

Percy laughs subduedly as Annabeth clenches her jaw. This was getting too real too fast. Percy’s unexpectedly sweet confession threw her off guard and a strange silence descended upon them.

Silena breaks it, “Well, I’ve never seen you this way before, Percy. It’s a cute look on you.”

Beckendorf nudges her and signals to his watch. She sighs. “Sorry, we have to go now, but we’re actually having a small sorority party this week,” Silena turns to look at Annabeth. “We would love it if both of you could join us.”

“We’ll try our best,” Annabeth replies.

Silena and Beckendorf share a smile, before turning to leave the cafe.

When the couple were out of earshot, Annabeth hissed at Percy, “What was that all about? You could have just told them we weren’t a couple.”

“In case there were Sveltes’ waitresses nearby,” Percy says in a matter-of-fact manner. “If they catch us, this whole meal isn't going to be worth it.”

Before she could protest that very obvious excuse, he stuffs a large chunk of waffles into his mouth and points to his mouth. Annabeth narrows her eyes at him, and for some reason, Percy glances down at his food with a shy, lopsided grin.

After the meal, Percy respectfully insists on walking her back to her dorm on the account of her agreeing to get waffles with him.

And when that didn’t work out, he brought out the big guns. “Annabeth, please, what would my mother say if I let you walk home at this time of the night?”

She snorts. “You would be the type to be a mommy’s boy.”

Percy’s eyes crinkle. “I take pride in being a mommy’s boy.”

The easygoing banter starts again, and Annabeth occasionally catches Percy glancing at her for too long, each time his soft smile causing a lump in her throat and a distinct feeling of warmth on her cheeks.

It isn’t until they are nearing her dorm building when Percy starts talking less, his feet awkwardly shuffling.

“So,” he looks down as he lightly kicks the fallen leaves in front of him. “I had a great time today.”

She smirks. “Okay, I’m leaving.”

“Annabeth,” Percy blurts out, his hands coming up to stop her from leaving, before he thought better and pulled back, hands coming to rest near his body as he fiddled restlessly with his fingers.

She turns back around to face him. “I… I wanted to say that…” Percy closes his mouth, then opens it again, but no sound comes out.

He laughs nervously. Although she knows what he’s trying to do, this knowledge does nothing to quell the warm feeling in her stomach.

“I mean, since middle school, I kind of…” Percy raises his eyebrows meaningfully. “No, I…”

Annabeth almost wants to help him when his eyes catch hers.

“... So, I know this really nice pancakes place just down the street, I might need your help again because I think there’s a couples’ discount there too--”

“Percy, just ask me out.” Annabeth interrupts, exasperated.

“I want to do this properly.”

She rolls her eyes but smiles at him. “Great, we’ll be here all night then.”

#first fic #fluff #definitely fluff #i hope it's cute and brings some joy #the word svelte just came into my mind don't ask me why #pjo #annabeth chase #percy jackson #percabeth

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mxtcha-tea · 3 years

Text

Lines.

✎desc; how I would rate haikyuu character's drawing.

✎team[s]; fukurodani, inarizaki

✎genre; crack

✎language[s]; english

✎chef note; okay, first off, I'm not a professional drawer but I can still rate drawings. This idea just came to me like a minute ago and I had to do it now, so enjoy :)

fukurodani.

Bokuto

Aight, I see that we started off greatly.

In all honesty, he have no idea how to draw,

And of course his drawing would look,,,, quite terrible i'm so sorry bokuto lovers

He's that kid in art class where's when the teacher already told them what to draw,

Bokuto sat there on his chair, staring at the canvas

Like, what is he suppose to do? Draw?

Well, yeah technically but what???

I can totally see him frustratingly erase the sketch if it can be called as a sketch

And then proceed to try to copy other people's work

Keyword; try

It's bad but at least he had an effort to finish it

4/10, there I said it

Akaashi

His drawings are not that professional but it's pretty

Have you ever seen a drawing that you wanted to stare at it for hours until you're satisfied?

That what's his drawing are like

Not typically an art kid so he's fine when student's from his art class asked him to draw for them

And is feeling pretty neutral with his talent (he actually won't call it a talent but more like a hobby or sum)

And just say 'thanks' if peoples compliments his drawing

Let say his drawing is, a good 8/10

A decent drawer in conclusion :)

Konoha

Not a bad drawer but he rather keep it basic

Konoha's prolly too lazy to draw something over the top so he's just gonna draw flower or something ksndnzkj

Sometimes sleep during art class and had to ask what they had to draw

Proceeds to decently draws a scenery

He's totally not the creative kid so whenever the teach tell them to draw something, he'll always go with basket of fruits, like,

Man, I appreciated the drawing but at least put some effort on thinking what to draw

The art teacher also kept telling him that he have raw talent and should enhance the skill more,

But that never happened, no

"Sorry ma'am, I'll just stick to volleyball, thank you,"

One part of the art room has a section of konoha's basket of fruits drawings but in different mediums

Rating is 7/10

Washio

IS actually an art kid and you cannot convince me otherwise

Has a small sketchbook with him and he'll always doodle when he's bored or in a middle of a lecture (while taking notes of course)

His main skill in drawing tho is painting

The colors blends in so well with one another and he's good at picking color palettes

Also, he doesn't really get that annoyed if some kids from his class ask him to teach them how to draw

Or even look through his sketchbook

He'll just nod and hand it to them without a second thought

Ajsjdhsijsi Washio get so blushy when someone compliments his drawing,,,,

I’ll give a 10/10 :), congrats

Sarukui

The best that he can do is doodles of owls and other shits but other than that, he cannot do

But the doodles are kinda cute doe ngl

He’ll have his moment where he’s in class and have no idea what to do, and just doodles a bunch of stuff

Once he draw his whole teammate including his coach and himself, he thought to himself,

“Huh, this looks good,”

And then take a picture of it for memories (cause he might throw the book he’s doodling in away)

Speaking of that, he doesn’t have an official book for drawing and just draws in his english or math’s textbook or sum

His juniors eyes are blessed when they got his textbook

Sarukui just vibes in during art class, draws and that’s pretty much it

The drawings,,,,,eh,,,, not that good, he only specialize in doodling as I said

so in conclusion,

drawing? 2/10

doodling? I’ll give a solid 5/10, good job

Komi

I’m gonna say this and I’m prolly gonna say it again

He hates art class

Like, even with him trying his best to draw, it’ll always gonna look strange than what he planned

mf cannot draw a straight line in art class

This dood can draw a nice straight line in any other class whether it’s for a graph or others,

And then proceed to shakily draw a straight line during art session

Totally not an art kid and will never be one

His drawings,,,,

I’m so sorry but it looks so bad

It’ll prolly look a lot better if he put more effort, but it’ll still look bad no matter what

Komi hates art class and can’t draw even a decent doodle so unfortunately, I’ll have to rate it 0/10, sorry :(

Anahori

His drawings are eh

It’s not good but also not bad?

Sometimes you’ll just stare at his drawing for a good minute and be like, what did he just draw just now?

What I’m saying is that his drawing’s are unexplainable

Maybe if you stare at it a little bit longer then it’ll make sense and you can see the beauty in it

But honestly I can’t really see anything, not in a bad way, but like, literally nothing

You’ll be staring at his canvas as the mario kart rainbow road music started playing inside your head

But Anahori is always proud of his drawings no manner what

So, I’ll rate confusion/10

Onaga

Just like Komi, he sorta hates art class too

But lemme tell ya, his sketches are GODLY, like, have you seen those pinterest hand sketches?

That’s what his sketch would look like

It’s so yummy to look at what

But he sucks at lineart so JAHGSDSHD

Onaga cannot properly hold the black pen and do the lineart, it’ll always turn wonky and he had to throw it away

Like, if he spend even hours tryna outline it all, and then erase it

It’ll look so trash

And he’ll just stare at it for a couple of minutes before crumpling the paper

He’ll also suck at coloring

Mans cannot understand how the color blend in together

And I think I’ll rate,,,,,6/10 just cause he suck at coloring and lineart lmao don’t worry i suck at coloring too

Kaori

Another decent drawer and her drawings are almost the same as Akaashi’s

But instead of it looking pretty, it looks cute

I have a headcanon that Kaori have a journal and does journaling so that’s prolly the reason why her drawings are cute af

But honestly, her drawings sometimes depends on her mood,

If she’s mad or frustrated, her drawing would look kinda rough and not that cute anymore

If she’s feeling happy tho, It’ll look so nice and cuddly does that even make any sense

Isn’t necessarily an art kid but would love to try be one

And she totally have drawing sessions with Washio aaaaaa,

Just imagine both of them sketching in the same sketchbook while talking about the volleyball club or anything else

She’s getting an 9/10 just cause her sketchs looks clean <33

Yukie

She doesn’t draw at all

Like, you’ll never see her drawing at any kind of time so you have no idea what it looks like

Yukie would still attend art class,

But never draws

She said that she’s pretty lazy to draw it and said to draw it at her home later

But no one even saw that drawing after that

Yukie doesn’t show her drawings nor EVEN draw for once

So I technically can’t rate :/

inarizaki.

Ginjima

LISTEN

The only reason why I started with Gin is because he have some amazing drawing skills

He admit that he’s not an art kid but draws godly as if he had been thought since he was a kid,

Well, actually yes

I think Ginjima actually wanted to be a drawer when he was still a little kid way before he started his 3rd year of middle school

So he practiced a few and became a nice drawer since then,

But he kinda quit being a drawer and decided to go with volleyball

And guess what?

His drawing talent is still there

He totally specialize in pencil drawing cause that’s the first thing he started learning

The lines are smooth and the shading are so yummy what is wrong with me

The Miya twins and Suna are so sh00ked when he saw his drawing during art class

ngl he’s pretty smug about it too but doesn’t brag about it

I’ll give this boy 12/10, mwuaah

Suna

I hate this man for this sole reason

Suna is too LAZY to draw so he doesn’t give any effort in his drawing

I can guarantee myself that I’ll get an eye strain when I saw his drawing

And...

*wipes away tears*

He draws too many dick

–2/10

Don’t come for my head Suna lovers

Atsumu

OMFG

OKAY, OKAY, I KNOW THAT ATSUMU MIGHT PUT ON SOME EFFORT IN HIS DRAWINGS,

BUT WHY IS IT STILL SO BAD?????

He’ll prolly think his drawing would look good but no, it’s not

No matter on what perspective you look his drawings at, It’ll still look bad

AND HE DOESN’T EVEN NOTICE IT

Osamu laughs a lot at his drawing and they started fighting for that only reason smh

Atsumu, I appreciate your effort so SO much,

But please, just stick to volleyball

–10+/10

I put a plus there because of his effort and because of pity

Osamu

He draws in ms paint, with a mouse

But he can draw some foods tho

But all of it looks wonky af

1/10

Akagi

A pretty decent drawer

Akagi always draw happy and cute drawings so you’ll also get happy when you saw his drawings

Puts on a big smile when people compliments his drawing and shyly scratches the back of his neck

“Nah, this just look normal!”

But he draws oddly thick lines sometimes

Sometimes it looks good in some drawing

And sometimes it looks, bizzare in others...

But I think his drawing would look nice <3

Overall, I’ll give a,,, 7.5/10, keep up the good work

Oomimi

He’s from class 7 AND I really think that he’ll be good at drawing

Well, he can draw a few things but he struggles drawing other things he never accustomed to

But!

Oomimi is that kid who’s good at drawing scenery

He knows basic color palettes and which is cold and hot colors

So the scenery drawing would always look good

He get a lot of compliments for the drawing (50% of it from Akagi)

I think he doesn’t have that many time to relax and draw freely but when he does have it, it’ll just be small and simple doodles

um, let’s go with 8/10 <3

Aran

I truly believe that Aran can draw peoples face but in a pretty decent amount

He’s also good with anatomy teach me your ways king

But as much as he’s good at that, he kinda sucks at drawing any kind of background drawings

Mans can’t draw a scenery I’m telling you

As if the background doesn’t even exist in his mind lolol I’m sorry Aran lovers, I didn’t mean that in a bad way

Mainly uses copic markers to color and color pencils to shade

The first time he use the copic marker, he got really frustrated that the marker stain the other pages lmao

And he never uses digital drawing applications or softwares

Aran just doesn’t

I think I’ll rate him, 8.5/10

Kita

Okay, I know that Kita’s a top student and never fails in anything

But he’s not typically a good drawer that much

His drawing still got good marks but when you look at it, it just looks normal

I just know that the Kita lovers gonna get me after this

It’s not that bad and not that good, just a nice balance in between

I personally think Kita’s not that godly in drawing but rather a neutral drawer

He draw what he can and does shading and coloring when it’s needed

The colors are all basic colors, no pastel, no neon

And the shadings are pretty basic

Just a normal drawer here

Ya’ll gonna fight me for this but I’ll give Kita’s point,

7/10

#haikyuu #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu crack #inarizaki #fukurodani #bokuto #akaashi #konoha #washio #sarukui #komi #anahori #onaga #yukie #kaori #ginjima #suna #atsumu #osamu #akagi #oomimi #aran #kita

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hedonisthierophant · 4 years

Text

Unveiled eyes and bloodless lips -A skarsgard multiverse thing.

A universe of many Bills, a couple AHAs, and a few others.

@grandpa-sweaters You asked for fic with The Kid and instead I somehow came up with this monstrosity. I’m not sure if you’ve ever read my writing before but I’m sorry.

Dedicated to my literary soulmate @ill-skillsgard I hope you don’t hate it.

Warnings: Smut, mentions of pregnancy and childbirth, gore, spit kink, cuckoldry, degradation, injury, death.

Unveiled eyes and bloodless lips

The witch had lost this game long before she even started playing, the final result such a foregone conclusion that it might be more accurate in fact to say she had lost before she had even been born. Forces much larger than her, to call them even titanic in scope would be an understatement, had been attending to the moves of the board since time immemorial. To say her fate such as it was had been decided back then is to grievously misstate the situation. Her exact destiny was fiercely contested on the board of play, it could’ve turned out completely differently, unfolding along anyone of the infinite myriad of paths of kismet. But her doom? That became inevitable she drew the attention of the game’s players. Naturally she remained unaware of the inescapable quality of her demise, she fought against it until the very last moment, her ferocious zeal, her skill and talent, all of it amounted to naught, For what hope does in an insect have against flood? Through no fault of her own, her perspective on this eons-long contest she had the misfortune of being prescribed to enter was…limited. In actuality the word “limited” doesn’t begin to convey the magnitude of her ignorance, imagine if you will placing your eye at a keyhole and attempting to catch a glimpse of a room darkened to pitch black. Some less astute souls might say that her involvement in the affair was rather like bringing a deaf person to the symphony but you dear reader know better, I should hope. Someone who cannot hear will have a different experience with music to be sure, but an experience they will have, the concepts on display remain within the realm of understanding. In our case a young woman became the toy of forces so far beyond her ken that she was to them as an amoeba might be to one of us beneath the prying lens of a microscope. As you may have surmised the tragedy that brings my voyeuristic audience to me unfolded slowly, spanning two lifetimes. Of course, this is only slow from the mortal point of view, to the beings that brought this about such a timeframe was less than the blink of an eye might be to us, for their machinations make glaciers seem to move with haste. Oh yes, they lack celerity but in exchange their actions carry the gravity of unquestionable certainty. However, I have indulged myself long enough. It is time that I recount, to the best of my ability the story which is brought you here today…whilst I remain able to do so.

Her mother was possessed of a nearly singular lack of the talent that had been at the disposal to members of her family as far back as records would go. She did retain the gift of foresight. In the hands of anyone else this boon guaranteed an interesting life, if not necessarily a good one. The ability to see the future meant that so much of the world could be bent to your whim, fortunes raised, mistakes avoided, enemies destroyed before they even had the opportunity to transgress. For her mother though the only thing her visions brought was infinite sadness. She was many months pregnant you see. The result of an impetuous liaison with an excitable and impassioned thief several years who junior who quite literally stumbled into her lap, betrayed by his gangly limbs at a luxurious hotel bar he happened to be casing. He must have absconded with a waiter’s uniform for nothing about his outfit fit his exquisitely lanky form properly. Remembering the bowtie that hung limply and sideways from his collar still brings a smile to her face. The knave proclaimed she was the love of his life, his goddess and that he would devote his life to securing her happiness. It was quite a scene the tableau made certainly more…unconventional due to the fact that she was celebrating her first wedding anniversary at and sitting directly across from her husband at the time. Their marriage had been mostly a business arrangement, not entirely loveless but more cordial than intimate, but she thinks she could have grown to love him for the smirk that wound its way across his face after the blubbering young would be waiter realized his presence. She recalls watching the scene like a member of the audience at the theater, her face impassive, one brow raised. Her husband had a reputation for an incredibly violent temper, if you ever witnessed it though but she could never convince herself to entirely discredit the rumors. Both she and the scoundrel were frozen, he in fear, she in surprise. Her husband stood up, declare that their food had been awful and they were taking the waiter as recompense. Her husband, she couldn’t stand the pain that thinking his name brought even all these years later. He had made his fortune as proprietor of the “last heir to the great circuses of old, the man was a showman to his core and could have sold sin to the most pious of people. Sitting in the stands watching that man bewitch everyone around her, she certain she could’ve learned to love him had she been given more time with him. Her brother-in-law put a stop to any happy fantasies she might’ve entertained though, fratricide had a way of casting a pall over such things. Death took him from her, but that night he had been so very alive. He threw the reprobate onto their sumptuous marriage bed and ordered her in a voice that was equal parts chilling and gleeful to fuck him within an inch of his life. She did, hips canting madly as she struggled to match the thief’s exuberance for all he was worth, she was the only thing that grounded him as he shuddered through orgasm after improbable orgasm. His soulful eyes stared up at her as though she had hung the stars. After one particularly fierce climax she turned to look at her husband across the darkened room for all the while he had been orchestrating the performance as though being its sole audience member also burdened him with the role of conductor, she may have been having extraordinary sex but for all that the two of them were just toys for her husband. He controlled them with such precision a note here, a whisper there, advice for the two of them ghosting across the room. He was a master puppeteer, they may have lacked physical strings but that did not stop him. He ruled over them with the same exactness he employed with his beloved elephants, compelling them through routines to astound and amaze basking in the dazzled worship of the onlookers. That night though, he was taking full advantage of being the only onlooker. She still remembers the manic smile on his face and how his hair looked like flame in the moonlight spilling through the window as hysterical (euphoric) laughter echoed off the walls of their manor, as though her husband were the only one in on some wonderfully hilarious joke of cosmic proportions. Looking back on it, he may well have been. Following their final crescendo as her husband’s euphoria slowly waned into giggling, the criminal professed his love for her for the umpteenth time and begged her to come away with him to Florida, promising to dedicate the rest of his days to making her happy. His stirring gaze brimmed with imploring tears he unabashedly let fall from his eyes, his voice quavering beneath the immense wait of his need to keep her in his life. The scales she used to weigh her options were suddenly dashed as her husband took a great gasping breath, sprang up from his seated position in the sumptuous armchair he’d been occupying and began to flit around the room gathering things to him, mania rolling off him in waves. He’d hoisted the nude crook off her with little apparent effort despite being smaller than the rangy younger man. He spun him around and slapped the sex drunk visitor’s bare ass as the man squawked in surprise and indignation, pale globes of flesh flushing an angry shade of red and leaving a print in the form of her husband’s hand at the sting. Her husband crouched for on his haunches for a moment to admire his impromptu work of art. She couldn’t see him but she could clearly picture his eyes growing wide with fascination as the mark took shape, his hands twitched with restrained desire, she could practically feel him warring with the impulse to throw him onto their marriage bed yet again, but this time for the purpose of sowing sharper and deeper blossoms of suffering across the entirety of the canvas that was the other man’s body. Disturbed smile still in place as he ground his teeth he muttered to himself in hushed tones. “No Jer, be a good boy. Almost done now, you can do it. Just gotta ape him. He straightened the conflict within him tucked away beneath the impeccable veneer of the consummate showman’s mask. “Would that I could have joined you crazy kids. I’d have loved to use all my fun little tricks on a tall glass of water like you. I’d have driven you crazy, stark raving mad really, shown you just how wild gingers can get, I’m talking showing you where the animals go.” He said with a grin that was only matched in lascivious by it’s lunacy and air of danger. She was certain the young man with the innocence and coordination of a newborn fawn would not have survived such an encounter He clapped the sex drunk young man on the back, sensually garbed him in a ludicrously expensive silken kimono, handed him a duffel bag of cash as though he had one standing by for just this occasion. That torn expression came over his face yet again, this time he surrendered to his urges. Quite suddenly he brought their lips together with the force of a devouring hunger, grinding his crotch against the other man’s leg. Judging by the surprised sound that issued from their visitor, her husband’s tongue had embarked on an enthusiastic exploration of the other man’s mouth. Then as suddenly as the whirlwind of passion had come, it stilled. He stepped back, a deranged smile lighting up his face. A single thin and determined cord of saliva still bound them together in remembrance of their embrace, her husband broke it with his middle finger, and then brought the digit to the other man’s lips. He sucked on it with a dazed expression for a moment before her husband withdrew with out warning. He clapped him on his back, said in perhaps the most jovial tone a cuckold has ever used with his competitor “I’ve always loved a good fireworks show.” and sent the befuddled young paramour on his way with a wink. The next day her husband left on “family business” to some crime on the east coast submerged seven layers deep in corruption and crime, this business ended in his demise. She remembers looking at him in the casket, smirk fixed in place as though even in death he had gotten the last laugh after all.

That had all been eight months ago exactly. Now here she was at a comfortable cruising altitude of 30,000 feet returning from a sojourn to the place where so many of her sisters had famously died along with innocents and hapless victims of circumstance. She buried her husband in the cesspool city and then communed with nature and the spirits of the sisters who came before her in Salem, now all that was left for her to do was return to her family’s modest estate in Canada and continue puzzling over the odd provision in her husband’s will for any child of hers regardless of whether that child was part of their union or not. The trouble began in earnest on that flight which should’ve been an entirely unremarkable trip from Salem to Halifax. The first unusual occurrence was that her water broke and quite suddenly she was in the process of bringing a life into the world some 2000 stories off the ground suspended in what she’d always considered to be fragile contraptions held aloft by little more than a prayer. Her situation was odd and certainly less than ideal but not unheard of. The flight attendants rushed her to the back of the plane and by what many would like to think was a happy accident there were several members of an obstetrics team present aboard that very flight. The delivery was much more difficult than expected for the culmination of what had been by every reckoning a model pregnancy, with nary an over-enthusiastic kick. Whatever creature was inside of her head suddenly gained the claws of the most wicked of fairytale crones, and the weight of a giant every movement brought only piercing agony and precious little relief. Her screams echoed through the craft that was a dedication to mankind’s hubris as her pain intensified so too did an incredibly unforeseen bout of bad weather, the radar which just hours ago prior to takeoff had promised skies wonderful for flying was now proving itself to be a liar. It was as though passing above some insignificant little town in Maine that caused the storm spring up around them. Their vehicle was buffeted from every direction by winds and frost that were unseasonable even for harsh winter in upper North America. Around her people cursed and prayed, screamed and shouted as the pilots fought to deliver their charges to the ground in the same amount of pieces as they left it, rather than in so many more as was becoming increasingly likely. The town against all sense did have its own infinitesimally small airstrip, it wasn’t until many years later that she would begin to understand just how long ago the pieces had been set in play. As they began their harried descent people were struck by falling luggage and other debris that comes when you compress the lives of hundred people into the space of an aircraft and then turn it into a topsy-turvy. Some were killed, she even took a piece of glass to the jaw but any object that got within striking distance of the newborn child swaddled in a washcloth suddenly lost all momentum and dropped to the floor, this sort of power was most definitely beyond her she had no gift for telekinetics but she was simply too alarmed at the gravity of their situation as Earth’s own gravity began to make its power and its displeasure at having been flaunted known to the passengers. Someone with much more than was at her disposal was looking out for her daughter. And so, their airplane limped down from the sky thoroughly chastened by Zeus and his ilk for its trespass into their domain and Moira and her mother crashed into Castle Rock.

Moira and her mother had always been considered oddities by the town. Two outsiders literally cast out of the heavens and dropped into the midst of unwelcoming townsfolk. Her mother had made the best of the situation, for she had tried, made a very valiant attempt to leave this town but the moment that she crossed the boundaries she was wrapped in agony which would not abate until she took a step back into the town, this phenomenon persisted whether she tried by car or on foot and she refused to give air travel another attempt. She was no fool, she knew well that some incredible force was bent on keeping her and her daughter entrapped in this little nothing of a hamlet. She may not have had the gifts that her family had taken for granted but anyone could make rituals work with enough determination, she used her dead husband’s well to secure a small cottage on the outskirts of town for her daughter and set about turning it into a mystic fortress brimming with occult defenses. Oh the villagers looked at her askance when she went asking strange herbs or when rumors, true in this case, swirled about that she desecrated graves looking for bones or danced in the moonlight bared skin flashing as she circled her home and chanted in forgotten tongues. Castle Rock had a history with which is in their neighbor town of Salem’s Lot you see, they knew the signs even if many had forgotten precisely what they meant. When her mother realized she was potentially in the territory of other practitioners her theory became that a powerful coven existed here and they wanted her for as of yet unknown reasons, but the more she doubt the more it seemed that any true coven had long since died out or moved on to more fitting pastures. The occult in community the town consisted of one or two charlatans, and a few like herself with barely an iota of true power between them, capable of little more than the simplest cantrips, certainly not the massive feats of magic required to both down and trap her here. The first night she performed a ritual of crying beseeching a cracked bowl she’d stolen from the motel to connect her with her mother. Her family had always been a nest of vipers they were immune to their own poison but that did not stop the backstabbing that took place as soon as one was no longer able to defend oneself. Her mother made it clear imperious tones bringing out into the forest and stirring the leaves although in truth she was many miles away, that by allowing herself to be brought low and trapped in a backwater with even a lesser one of her families grimoires by unknown parties she had shamed the family and would be forgotten. They would not come to her aid. Cast out of the one coven she had known since birth she went about forming a tighter knit one as its replacement. She had asked the two charlatans out of town and gathered those with inklings of true power to her, she lacked her family’s innate command of the mystic arts, but her deficit had made her a master ritualist. And so she doled out their precious secrets to a few peasants in this town and made herself a new family. With helpers at her disposal she was able to enact more complex magic and had soon carved out a niche for herself and her followers as the area’s sole authority on matters of the arcane. People flocked to see her from all corners of the continent and a few from even further. She didn’t doubt that her mother, the rest of her family and their retainers were trying their best to end her life but as the years went by it occurred to her that whatever was keeping her here was also keeping her alive, the town seemed to repel anything more than passing outside influences and her family feared to enter its boundaries and become trapped themselves, better to let whatever invisible enemy had brought her there finish her off eventually. Their judgment proved correct.

Moira was an unusual soul, daughter of the town witch and perpetually mistrusted. Despite all that she had a sunny demeanor and those that matter couldn’t help but be charmed by her. For as long as she could remember her mother had forced her, even as a barely aware child to partake in odd rituals, from filling purple gossamer bags of strange herbs sends unknown objects and placing them in various spots throughout the house to keeping a bowl of water by the door and flicking a drop against the wood once it was shut to bathing in oils and strange concoctions by the light of the moon. She did all this because as she told Moira “Something was out to get them.” Moira always found it odd that her mother chose to say something as opposed to someone. Moira had always dreamed of being a doctor but her mother forbid her to leave town for any reason and although she could not explain why to herself even after all these years she’d never even thought of disobeying that particular rule. Her few friends in town and her mother concurred that she would’ve made a brilliant doctor but in a town like Castle Rock the closest she could manage was to be a nursing assistant at the local prison. Some days she bemoaned her life stuck in this little town, so small that it did not even merit a dot on most maps of the area. But she would gather up her natural cheer, take her sketchpad and pencil, sit in the park and draw on those days. Since Moira began drawing she’d been a prodigy, but even from earliest childhood when one has no attention span to speak of after she would dally with the subject and that she would return always to her first. A pair of haunting blue-green eyes, a slightly upturned nose, and your whispering pair of lips, cracked and dry, parched even to the drawings one got the impression that no words passed between them for a long time. The drawings of course worried her mother but try as she might she could puzzle out no theories as to their significance, the last time she’d tried describing ritual on the mysterious subject her bowl had been gripped by a powerful kinetic force shattered from the inside out embedding pieces of cheap ceramic into the wall around her and a few into her body as water that had been cool and tranquil moments earlier became scalding and improbably rose up to splash her in the face. It was then she decided that the drawings were out of her power.

Whenever she was outside of her house Moira always felt the faintest buzzing against her skull, the local doctor had considered it a prodromal symptom of a migraine, but the element never progressed beyond an irritating sound. Until the day she disobeyed one of her mother’s rules. She always looked forward to Fridays, it meant that she have the weekend to draw, but more importantly she would get to see Adrian. Adrian she suspected, that been an enigma from the moment he was born. A Scandinavian street rat with far too much charm and intelligence for his own good and somehow grifted his way across the Atlantic and ended up in her life riding a steed of criminal charges for allegedly attempting to traffic young women across the border. Adrian claimed he had been trying to rescue them and the promised jury of his “peers” such as it was appeared to have bought that story, but Adrian could sell water to a drowning man. Even Moira was unsure what the truth of the matter was. Still Adrian was a charmer, and incorrigible flirt and she had fun bantering with him, although when she asked about his plans his thoughts always turned to getting out and making enough money to support his little boy. About a month ago, Adrian had complained of awful whispering noises splitting his skull during the day while Moira was not on shift. She walked into his cell the later at the start of the graveyard shift and found him sitting as though he were a wounded lion whose legs had been caught in a trap, through his quick pained breaths he greeted her in a melodious accent that was related to but unlike Adrian’s own. She saw that his legs were twisted, broken and fractured at various intervals as though someone had taken a chisel up and down the length of bone within his limbs. No one at the prison could explain the origin of his injuries and beyond a cursory visit from the institution’s uncaring physician no one tried to. As long as word did not escape these walls no one cared, Moira had thought about telling but who was there to tell? How did one even begin to do that? She’d never even left this town once in her twenty-something years. He been an able-bodied, athletic young man at lights out, and had awoken as…

“A cripple! I am but a poor humble cripple and I throw myself on your mercy, my dear sweet Moria. How must I abase myself before you to obtain another of these wonderful puddings? I am willing to do quite a lot, to serve…no that’s not quite the right word, oh your language is so silly…Service! I am willing to service you in oh so many ways!” He said in his singsong voice, appearing quite proud of himself for hunting down his lexical quarry. He he had used the provided spoon merely an implement to tear the thin film of plastic keeping him from his prize, flung it away and for lack of a better descriptor… began preforming cunnilingus on the pudding pouch in his hand, his performance was complete with moans and groans and little contented sighs. All the while never breaking eye contact with her, blue orbs burning into her own filled with indecent proposals. Unwilling to tolerate his antics anymore she snatched the offending pudding cup from his grasp, for the shadow of an instant she could have sworn a terrible look of feral rage had flashed across his countenance but it was gone before Moira could register whether or not it ever truly been there. “I am so terribly sorry dear Moira for my offense, it is just that in my day, we did not have such…culinary delights. He’d slowed to get the word “culinary” out properly but hadn’t stumbled and looked satisfied. In his day, that was the other thing, in the month since Adrian awoken the entire prison wailing about whispering in his cell, according to the doctors he developed a dis-associative identity. The young man that now occupied the cell which officially belonged to Adrian, called himself Ivar Lothbrok. He had been doing his best to convince Moira that he was the spirit of a long dead Viking who had for reasons unknown even to himself woken up in a body that was so similar to his own that it had frightened even him. The prison psychiatrist couldn’t have cared less about the situation in that cell, but to Moira it was quite the engaging mystery.

Today Moira decided to challenge him. “If you really aren’t Adrian, prove it if you’re not him then your innocent of the crimes that got him put in here and you should be angry, you should want out.” The smile that split the face in front of her should have been a warning. “I may be innocent of his petty crime dealing in flesh and weird…potions,” Moira decided to let the odd word choice go to spare his pride. “But I have killed and maimed, and lied, and stolen, and coveted many times over. You’re correct though, I do want out of the cell but for the moment I’m right where I want to be.” Moira, ever quizzical couldn’t stop herself from asking “Why do you want to be here?” “Because here is where you are.” he said as if he were speaking to the dullest child in all the world. “I will indulge you however, I am not Adrian, Adrian had pure wholesome thoughts about you, he was going to be free, tell you that he wanted you to be his little boy’s mother, beg you to start a family and run away with him to whatever little speck of a town he found someone foolish enough to care for the child while he was here. He’d have trafficked poison and flesh slaves or slaughtered swine for the rest of his days for you. He used to touch himself here in the dark fantasize about reaching through the bars of the cage and touching your skin, used to dream of having pure loving sex with you on a blanket by fjords illuminated only by the stars and the moon, lest he seemed to greedy to want to see you in all your glory. He wanted to fill your cunt with his seed over any over until the two of you made a brother or sister for precious little Patrick. One big happy family.” He spat out the infant’s name like a curse most vile, and treated the world family as though it was unconscionable poison on his tongue. She took a breath intending to halt whatever sick game he was playing, but the moment she drew breath and opened her mouth his eyes blazed with danger. “Keep your tongue behind your teeth if you wish to keep it all wench!” He roared. “You asked for this, now you will listen. I am not Adrian because never in his wildest dreams would he have contemplated the fantasy of using your uniform to tie you down and spitting on your face over and over forcing you to swallow what you could, and what you couldn’t would slide down between those perfect breasts of yours and they would glisten as I played with them, sucked and bit until they were raw, then I would have kept spitting until your cunt was drenched from the inside out, I would have laid siege to it like it was my traitor brother’s last stronghold. Oh, the sounds and squeals I would have pulled from you. I would have lavished you with my tongue and fingers, bit and sucked and twisted and slapped and pulled and made you come over and over again until you understood what it is to be ravished by a god!” He broke off into a fit of chuckling then capped with a wistful sigh. “But alas all that is denied to me, and indeed you, for you belong to someone else, and as sweet as you would be, you are not worth the effort of challenging his claim.” He stated this with such nonchalance that it broke the terrible spell that she had been under and she fled the prison with eyes burning and tears streaming.

Ivar smiled as she fled, finally, finally. he was one step closer to being free of this accursed in-between place, he was getting home to his beloved Eira and their little girl. Or perhaps another sojourn through life with his healer who had the body of a tower. Or maybe he’d meet that lippy little puppy of an entitled young man in Pennsylvania again who secretly craved discipline. Whatever happened he would be home again, nothing would stop him.

In her haste, she entered her home, ran to her bedroom and threw herself down on the bed without observing her mother’s rules. Had she been paying more attention she would’ve noticed that the water in the bowl she was supposed to flick at the door suddenly evaporated and the gossamer bags filled with protective elements suddenly caught flame and turned to ash in moments. It was then that she heard his voice. “Please don’t cry. I’m here now, it’ll be alright.” His tone was nearly plaintive. She didn’t bother setting up she knew that the voice came from no place within her home. “I’ve been waiting…eternities for you Moria,” He whispered inside her skull. “Let me make you feel better.” There was a hand stroking her face. Her eyes shot open and she beheld a figure that was both present and absent, there was wait to him but light seemed to pass through him through him as though he was merely a projection. Even trapped in the in between as he was, he was gorgeous. Her angel. A completely bare towering figure with the chest and leg and back and ass seemingly having been sculpted from the highest quality marble by da Vinci himself, with cheekbones that could reduce adamantine diamonds to dust, with lustrous hair and sinfully plump and pillowy lips. His eyes, so soulful that she believed he had lived a thousand lifetimes, she realized she’d been drawing this face for as long as she could remember. To feel his touch was to experience euphoria. He kissed her and all her senses were expanded beyond human potential, she saw a kaleidoscope of colors behind her eyes, he smelled and tasted of every single enticing thing at once but instead of a riotous discord of scents and flavors, they were balanced in perfect harmony. His voice alone could reduce her bones to jelly in a way that would make Ivar fear she intended to stake a claim to his epithet. He worshiped her with his entire being, fingers and hands and tongue and colossal endowment yes, but in the midst of their lovemaking she was certain that their spirits were melding even more intensely than their bodies. He spat upon her face one and she felt as though she were being anointed in holy oil by a deity. He scored her flesh with his sharp straight teeth the color of shining bone, drew blood, and she was happy to give it. His enormous hand encircled her throat closed her airway and if she hadn’t already been experiencing what she thought might be Nirvana, the oxygen deprivation would’ve taken her there. After fucking her through more than 20 orgasms and claiming all her orifices for his own each first with the gentle fervor of a virginal lover at the end of an idyllic courtship and then with a harsh brutality as though fucking her two within an inch of her life was the only way he could properly express the hatred for her that filled his entire alien being. He finally unburdened himself of his seed deep inside her and sighed contentedly .

When she awoke after their tryst, he was seated in a chair opposite her bed dressed in a suit and other finery looking for all the world like a high-powered professional instead of some cosmic entity to take an interest in her. He then told her of the tragedy of Henry Deaver, how a Titanic battle with his wife over his infidelity with a young woman he had met at a business engagement led to him driving fueled by rage and sadness while rain pounded the car and obscured his vision, he’d crashed into the lake and been thrown into a myriad of alternate realities, “other heres and nows where the dominos fell in different patterns. His stories of lives spent with Charlotte, Oliver, Westly, as a professor, a soldier from West Virginia, a bounty hunter who fought for his life in a dystopia, the life he’d almost lived of a Viking, a philanderer with a beer-based pick-up strategy, a gangster, the searching for true love based on a scientific assessment ,they all brought tears to her eyes. He entreated her with every fiber of his being to free him from his cage and put an end to his cycle of loneliness, to save him and others trapped in this limbo. She swore to do it.

That was the day the matriarch without a clan descended on the prison, her chariot of choice, a limousine flanked by a motorcade of four SUVs each bearing the insignia of an elite private security firm denigrated the world over for unsavory activities, their detractors though couldn’t question their effectiveness. She and the battalion she paid for advanced through the prison like a storm, the guards normally employed were deferential and out of their depth. The only sounds echoing through the prison with a click of her heels and the thuds of the jackboots that accompanied her for she had brought silence to the prison with her mere presence. Moira had heard of her, the interim controller of a ludicrously wealthy and secretive biotech firm following the scandalous disappearance of her son and heir. Allegedly, the young man whom the newspapers referred to as the Brat Prince had somehow veered off the course of normally accepted philandering ways among the ultrarich and powerful and become involved with someone his mother deemed unacceptable. The matriarch had come because the vast network of informants that she plied with riches and sharp promises had imparted to her knowledge of a prisoner found here who almost matched her son’s description. The only thing he had left behind was a wheelchair covered in the blood of its owner, a crippled faggot whom he had dared to take for a lover. He would pay for his insolence, for the damage down to her reputation and company, she would break this mysterious prisoner and learn all that he knew, she swore it. When she reached his unusual cell a young woman in scrubs was fumbling with the keys, her son’s face taken on a different path through destiny than the one she knew stared back at her. He spoke to her in an antiquated dialect of that language from the Balkans she had left behind so many mortal lifetimes ago, she was not that frightened, trusting girl from Wallachia anymore, she nearly charged the cage to make him pay for daring to address her this way, but the meaning of his words stilled her. “Madame Olivia, I believe we can be of help to one another once this insect has served its purpose.” Moria broke the lock.

He nuzzled into her touch aching a contented sound as she ran her hands through his hair, it had been eons since he felt the touch of another, his eyelashes fluttered and tears swam in his eyes, he would allow himself this one indulgence. “Loyal Moria, you have played your part well and in appreciation I give you the greatest of gifts, the fulfillment of your destiny.” When he spoke it was with the voice of 100 different people at once both cacophonous and whisper quiet. She screamed as his lips brushed her forehead, for this feather-light touch broke everything inside of her all at once. She fell as her skin froze and burned all at once, her muscles liquefied and her bones turned to jelly, her ears, nose, and eyes ran with blood, then her eyes began to boil in their sockets fluids running down into her still shrieking mouth as her body contorted it this way and that trying desperately to contend with suffering that was beyond human comprehension.

The last thing she saw before death mercifully claimed her were a pair of unveiled eyes atop bloodless lips, her final sight was one she had been drawing her entire life.

As the wretch finally had the good sense to expire Olivia Godfrey watched as the death seemed to fill out the prisoner’s gaunt and wan features until she could almost confuse him for an older version of her son. He drew in a deep breath, stooped to kiss her hand and issued a request, eyes glittering with dark promise: “Take me to Derry.”

#Bill Skarsgård #fic #roman godfrey #ivar the boneless #henry deaver #Mickey #axel cluney

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rikumorimachisgirl · 4 years

Text

So, I started writing this Mystic Messenger fic last year but lost the inspiration to continue. I finally finished it today, so I hope you like it.

Oh, and I commissioned this lovely artwork from @hydeine last year, too. I said I'd tag her when I finally post the fic. I suppose today's the day. Here we go...

Title: Strawberry Pancakes

Pairing: Jumin Han x OC (Iris)

Genre: Fluff

Word count: 2,665

Author's notes: Some of the scenes were faithful to the game.

Disclaimer: I do not own Mystic Messenger, but I own the idea of this fanfic.

It started with pancakes. Those thick, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth fluffy stove-top cakes that both of them - apparently - were both fond of.

The first time they talked about it got him into a spot of trouble. Over an utterly dull lunch date with his father and his latest conquest, amidst the rich ambiance of the Michelin star restaurant where only the who's who in society were spotted, Jumin Han chose to indulge in a little tête-à-tête of his own at the RFA chat room with her.

Her. Iris - RFA's accidental member, unofficial party organizer, everyone’s cheerleader, and about the only other person who resonates with him. Jumin quietly as he waited for her to respond to his last message. Over the last twenty minutes, they have gone from talking about Elizabeth the 3rd’s grooming habits to his favorite breakfast food.

| ‘I like chocolate chip pancakes.’ He felt his lips stretch sideways as he read her message. It was strange, he thought, how he's been joining the chat room more often since she joined. In the two weeks that they've been chatting, he felt closer to her than he's ever been with anyone in his life.

| ‘I figured you would.’ He typed and sent.

|’Huh?’

|’You seem like the type who'd indulge in something with high sugar content early in the morning.’

|’That was a lucky guess, Jumin.’

|’But I don't believe in luck.’

|’Oh, and I suppose you think you've got me all figured out already? If you're so smart, tell me what I’m thinking at the moment.’ He smirked at her cheeky response.

| ‘Iris, I'd like to remind you that I’m a businessman, not a fortune teller. If you’d like me to infer based on our conversation though, I'd say you're thinking that I like buttermilk pancakes, to which the answer is no. I prefer strawberry pancakes.’

Silence.

| ‘Am I really that predictable?’ Her message finally came in two minutes later. He chuckled. In his mind, he imagined she probably would’ve pouted as she replied.

“You seem rather amused, son. Did something happen?”

The sound of his father's voice snapped him out of his daydream. The young executive silently cursed himself for carelessly dropping his guard. Clearing his throat, Jumin straightened up and ran a hand through his dark locks.

“My apologies, father. I had urgent business to take care of.” He tucked his phone in his pocket while wishing that Iris would understand why he hadn't gotten back to her.

“Judging by your smile, I take it that business is going well?”

It took all of his willpower not to roll his eyes at his father's new girlfriend. Glam Choi was it? And what was it that she did? Judging by how she managed to turn heads, he deduced she must be some kind of celebrity. Nothing special, he thought; after all, his father, the Chairman of the Board of C & R International, seemed to have dated them all - socialites, celebrities, models, beauty queens - some of whom were even a year or two his junior.

“Jumin? Are you all right, son?”

He silently cursed himself once more. While he was silently judging his father’s new girlfriend, he had once again dropped his guard and gave the older man the opportunity to call him out.

“My apologies.”

“That's twice you've apologized. My, what an interesting day it is indeed, ” the stately older man said curtly. “Is our company not to your liking, son? Please just bear with us for a few minutes more. After all, your assistant told me that you won't have an appointment in the next hour or so.”

Jumin took a deep breath and sighed. If he had only known his old man’s agenda was to introduce his new girlfriend, he would’ve begged off right away. God knows he’d much rather be eating pancakes with her now than having a full-course meal in this place. He shook the thought away for a moment. Now wasn't the time to dream of her. Fixing his grey eyes at his father and the young celebrity he decided to date, he feigned a smile. “Very well, father, you have my full attention until then.”

OoOoO

The second time they talked about pancakes was more of an afterthought. It happened right after their first kiss.

Their first kiss. The very thought of it still made his heart race. He remembered every little detail as if it were yesterday. He had Assistant Kang to thank for arranging everything for him. Thanks to his efficient employee’s quick thinking, he was able to meet Iris a week earlier than the rest of the RFA members, although if he had a chance to do it over, he wouldn't be as flustered as he was when he first laid eyes on her the night before.

He watched in awe as she stepped into the foyer. She was everything he’d imagined - slender and graceful, her brown hair cascaded down her back, and her dark brown eyes looked back at him with the same level of wonder.

“Jumin, i-it's so nice to finally meet you.”

He swore he’d never felt his heart beat faster than it did at that exact moment. ‘Get a grip, ’ he scolded himself, as he schooled his emotions before it got the better of him. He must not lose his footing, after all, he was Jumin Han - businessman, philanthropist, future CEO.

“You’re beautiful.” The words slipped from his mouth quite naturally, and he immediately regretted it when he saw her cheeks turn several shades redder.

“I’m sorry, ” he cleared his throat. “What I meant to say was that I hope you traveled safely. If I had known Assistant Kang was going to ask you over, I would’ve sent out my driver to pick you up.”

And then she smiled, and he knew right away that he was going to do whatever it takes to keep her.

“Who is this woman and what is she doing in your house?”

Jumin gazed at the shameless woman his father had been forcing him to marry and resisted the urge to throw her out of his penthouse himself.

“Sarah, please don't be like that. I'm Jumin's friend -”

“And what kind of friend comes a man's house alone? By the looks of it, you probably stayed the night, too!”

If Iris was the least bit upset at the insults hurled at her, she did not let it show. Unfortunately, he was far from being gracious.

“This is dragging on far longer than I expected. I'm actually quite surprised I hadn't thrown you out the door the minute you showed me that fake cat picture. My security will show you out.”

“What? No, you can't do that. I'm your fiancée,” Sarah cried out incredulously.

“Oh, please,” he said haughtily. “If you think that we'd gotten engaged just by exchanging a few words, you're clearly delusional.”

“So, you're choosing her over me?”

“I don't know why you're even asking,” the dashing Chief Director of C & R International said, as he turned his attention to the willowy brunette who stood quietly in the corner. Something about the way she looked at him urged him to come closer to her. With each step he took, the answer became clearer. He stopped in front of her and smiled. She was a good head shorter than him, and she looked adorable gazing up at him with those big brown eyes.

“It wasn't like I had another choice to start with,” Jumin finally said, his eyes never leaving hers. “Iris,” he whispered, as he lifted her chin and closed the gap between them. He could've sworn he felt a shock wave run through his body the minute his lips touched hers. Suddenly, the sound of Sarah's protests faded, and all he could hear was the sound of his heartbeat - or was it hers? He really couldn't tell - but every single one of his senses zeroed-in on the beautiful woman in his arms.

Her lips were the softest he’d ever kissed - not that he’s had lots of experience - as a rule, he only kissed women because he needed to close deals with them and the kisses they shared were always cold. This, however, was different. As his mouth moved over hers, again and again, all he could think about were two things - how her kisses taste like strawberry pancakes, and that he could never get enough of her.

OoOoO

The third time they talked about pancakes was a memory guaranteed to make her blush almost immediately. He remembered vividly - Provence in July, a month after they'd gotten married. He promised to take her on an unforgettable honeymoon anywhere she wished. He thought she'd choose to go to Paris, Santorini, Milan, or even Ibiza, and he’d be happy to take her there; but instead, she chose to go to his newly-purchased winery so he could still oversee their daily operations while spending time with her and Elizabeth the 3rd.

That's so like her.

He woke up alone in bed one Sunday morning. Frustration marred his beautiful face as he ran his hand over her now-empty side of the bed, and found it still warm. She couldn't have been gone for long, he thought. And Elizabeth the 3rd, who usually enjoyed sleeping late, was not in the room as well. Still half-asleep, he forced one eye open to glance at the clock on her nightstand.

‘Six-thirty, ’ he groaned silently, as he rolled on to his back. What exactly could his wife be up to this early? Sighing, he rolled out of bed and left the room in search of the beautiful woman who disappeared from his side before he even got to kiss her good morning.

The house was quiet except for some movement coming from the kitchen. Raising an eyebrow, he quietly made his way to the large French country-style kitchen his wife loved so much and found himself entranced at the sight of the lovely brunette he now called wife, stirring something in the mixing bowl while their pet sat on the counter, looking curiously at her.

"I hope I get this right, Elizabeth the third, " she told the cat softly. "Jumin's pancakes always taste good, so I hope he'll like these."

Her innocent declaration made him gasp. She was making pancakes for him. And that realization made him pick up his feet and head over to where she was at.

"I see you both are up early."

"Jumin -, " she cried out in surprise, as she felt his arms wrap around her waist from behind. "Good morning, my love. I didn't expect you to be up so early."

"I could say the same about you, especially after we made love several times last night, " he responded, as he planted soft kisses on the side of her neck. Her cheeks turned red at the thought of their passionate night together, and he smiled, knowing how embarrassed she was. "You're blushing."

"I can't help it…, " she murmured. "And I think you've disappointed Elizabeth the third."

He watched their pristine white cat jump off the counter and saunter out of the kitchen. "I think she's just giving us some privacy. Don't worry, she'll be fine, " the dashing young businessman said as he stopped kissing her, but kept her in an embrace. "So, tell me what you're up to."

"I was going to make strawberry pancakes for you, " she started, her face still flushed. "But I'm not sure they're as good as the ones you make."

"Is that so?" He unwrapped his arms and moved closer to the counter where the mixing bowl was. "I suppose there's just one way to find out."

She watched in silence as he dipped his long and slender finger into the bowl and scooped up a tad bit of better. Carefully, he brought his finger near her lips, while watching her gently. "Say ahhh…, " he said and laughed at how dutifully his wife complied. "Well?"

"It's sweet…"

Cocking his head to one side, he smiled at her wryly. "Is that so?"

"Why don't you taste for yourself?"

His eyes twinkled with excitement, as she failed to realize how enticing her offer was. Cupping her face with his hands, he leaned forward and whispered, "I suppose I will, " before he ravished her mouth - and all of her body - over and over just like the night before.

The pancake batter was left untouched until later that day. And as she had placed ointment on the scratches she had left on his back, he feasted on the strawberry pancakes she had made just for him.

OoOoO

The fourth time they talked about pancakes was on Valentine's Day - the first of many they'll be spending together. He thought of many ways they could be celebrating this together and spent a lot of sleepless nights thinking of the perfect present for her. Never once did he think they'd be spending the day spooning her in bed, with one hand caressing her swollen belly.

Thirty-eight weeks. She had been carrying their first child for nearly nine months, and despite her growing belly and her slight weight gain, she continued to look even more beautiful.

"I really want pancakes, Jumin."

His hand stopped moving, and he raised an eyebrow at her upon hearing her request. "Darling, I asked you what you wanted for Valentine's…"

She snuggled closer to him as she felt his low voice vibrating on his chest. The gentle sound of his voice always soothed her and the baby, and she wanted to hear more of it today. "And I told you I want pancakes."

He frowned, feeling a little upset at her answer. In truth, she could have anything she wanted - jewelry, cars, all the designer items a woman could get her hands on - but all she wanted to for Valentine's was his home-cooked pancakes. "That's all you want?"

"That's all I want, " she hummed. A few seconds later, she felt the baby kick and the sensation made her giggle. "See? Even the baby wants pancakes."

"But the doctor said you should lay off sweets…" He should have known better than to speak those words because no sooner had he said them, she immediately turned to him with sad puppy eyes. He sighed. He knew at this point that he had lost to her once again - after all, he could never resist her - but he wanted to make her victory a little harder. "As I was saying, the doctor said…"

"But Jumin, I haven't had anything sweet since we found out I was pregnant, " she said, pouting. "And I'm really craving the strawberry pancakes you make."

"Will that make you happy?"

"Very much so."

Sighing again, he untangled himself from her and rolled out of bed. "All right. I suppose I can alter the recipe a little bit. You just lay there and rest, okay? I'll be back with your pancakes."

Elizabeth the third jumped from her bed and walked beside Jumin as he stepped out of the room. "How long do you think before she rolls out of bed and follows us?" He asked, glancing sideways at their precious feline as she mewled her response. "Ten minutes? That's too generous. She's been too fussy lately, but something tells me you're spot on, so we need to move fast."

And true to form, a very pregnant Mrs. Han waddled out of their room ten minutes later, enticed by the mouthwatering scent wafting from the kitchen.

"Those smell heavenly, " she said excitedly, as she made her way beside her husband and stood on tiptoes to give him a kiss. "Thank you, Jumin, " she whispered before she waddled towards the cozy little breakfast nook she had designed for them.

He smiled, as he watched her walk away from him. She had no idea how happy she's made him, how lucky he was that she came into his life, and how thankful he was for all the many things that brought them closer together. Especially strawberry pancakes.

The end.

#mystic messenger #mystic messenger fanfic #mysme jumin #jumin han #mm jumin #jumin x oc #mysme fanfic #iris writes #mm fanfic #mm jumin x oc #mysme jumin x oc

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unholyhelbiglinked · 5 years

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Camp BeaverBrook | 018

READ FROM THE START | AO3 LINK

Emily’s grasp was thick and domineering. Bloodied fingers dug into her side hard enough to leave little purple moons against clammy skin. Aubrey didn’t mind too much- she figured that was a good sign. Maybe she hadn’t lost too much blood. Maybe the fact that she was so cold wasn’t due to a slowly flickering flame- maybe it was just the frigid weather.

The moonlight leads the way, she can’t decide if that’s a God sent or not. They can see what’s in front of them as clear as day: The way little crystals of ice form on Beca’s ice-cold hair. The way A bruise wraps its deathly hand around Chloe’s neck. The wet blood that dripped around Emily’s lips. Who deserved justice more?

There was an eerie calm that had fallen over the camp. The campers had left- the counselors that were smart enough to follow were probably sitting in a warm diner right about now, or one of the darkened hotels that presented itself along the interstate. None of the name brand stuff that offered breakfast, the places where you would be lucky enough to find a room without a switch that made the beds vibrate.

She couldn’t hear any crickets, though. None of them could. That was a sign of danger and everyone knew it.

When she was younger, the house two blocks over caught on fire. Plumes of toxic smoke floated into the sky and the decaying scent of rotting wood being enflamed filled Aubrey’s lungs as she rode her bike around the corner and stopped just short of getting hit by an ambulance with roaring sirens.

She noticed a lot that day, a lot of noise that was impossible to drown out. But one thing that did hit her was the silence of the morning birds that sat on the powerlines and watched a family home destroyed in utter silence. Maybe it was out of respect, or maybe it was out of fear.

She hugged Emily closer at the memory and adjusted her fingers against her hip. Chloe held wordlessly onto the other side While Beca walked ahead of them all, her fingers on a trigger that she probably didn’t even know how to shoot. It made Aubrey feel uneasy.

Every time she blinked; she swore she felt it. Felt the wood under her fingertips as she pushed into the cabin that she had signed her final paperwork in. But it wasn’t just a cabin, it was Gail’s home. She braved the winters up here- felt safe up here. Until someone, Beca, maybe, stormed in and shot her between the eyes. A mercy killing. The blood dripped from her nose like cherry syrup.

“She couldn’t have been in two places at once.” Emily’s voice carried with the wind.

“Huh?”

“Beca… fuck, she uh, she was with Chloe and me. It’s not humanly possible for her to get across the camp in that amount of time. To blow up the shed… to strangle Chloe. She’s right, there are two of them and she’s not either.”

Aubrey frowned. She nearly failed statistics in her junior year. Not due to lack of trying, just because the logic of it all would throw her off from the equation. It was hard for her to admit that she was wrong, even harder when it was some snot-nosed counselor that pushed her buttons every single chance she got. She decided to focus on the old car in front of them instead. Its doors closed and something of a dummy leaning against the driver side window.

He almost looked fake and blue under the full moon. His eyes were closed, and that same dried brown liquid was spilled from his throat. Beca let out something like a grunt as she pressed her shirt sleeve against her lips with her free hand. Aubrey could smell it too. The blood and tobacco.

“Someone help me here,” Beca said, pulling open the door with conviction. Hesitation if not for survival. “He’s a heavy dude.”

Aubrey wordlessly leaned Emily against the hood of the car. Chloe instantly kneeling to adjust the strip of fabric that was keeping the young girl from fading out completely. It was soaked to the point of being pitch, like the sky.

“What was he like?” She nearly choked on the laden air as she grasped the other side of the fallen officer. His badge was luminescent in the moonlight. Beca edged herself around him, letting him crash to the ground in a heap of weight.

“He was a dick. A real pain in my ass who smoked enough to make up for a textile. But now I can see why he did it.” Beca placed her knee against the now empty drivers’ seat, the leather cold as she searched around in the scare visibility for something, anything, that resembled keys. “They’re not here.”

“What?” Aubrey asked.

“You heard me, they’re not here. I swear to god I left them in the center consul when I grabbed the gun but-“

“Don’t you know how to like… hop a car or something?” Emily asked from the front of the hood.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re right. I went from tagging walls to Grand Theft Auto, Emily.”

Chloe shot a deathly glare from her perch next to the wounded camper and Beca slightly coward under it before she dragged her fingertips around the console once more. No keys with a fuzzy white rabbits’ foot on it. Nothing but ash that stained the grooves in her fingertips a dark grey.

“Do you need some light?”

Aubrey’s chest seized, her heart in the throat and a cold sweat instantly beading against her skin. that voice, a voice, that she recognized whole-heartedly but never expected to become privy to while they searched a dead man’s car for a set of keys that may or may not start an El Dorado whose gas tank was probably on empty.

Beca Mitchell apparently held the same affinity for the situation. Her hand quickly wrapped around the weapon with a dull click as she whipped around and pointed the weapon dead in the direction of the newcomer: Jesse Swanson.

Brown eyes were wide, and fingers twitched in the cold of the night. He wore a dark flannel over his yellow camp shirt. That stupid little green beaver glared at them, almost mocked them. “Whoa, Jesus Maverick, I thought you had never seen Top Gun.”

Beca glanced sparingly at the other girls as she adjusted her stance, shoving the weapon back into the hem of her pants. “You can’t sneak up on a someone like that dude. Not now. What are you even doing here? I thought you would have left by now?”

“And miss the genuine chance to be a part of something this big? Haven’t you ever seen Sleepaway Camp?” He said excitedly. Almost with pure glee. “there’s no way I’m passing up that chance… where’d you get a gun anyway?”

“Doesn’t matter. You’ve got that light?”

Jesse nodded and rounded the other side of the car before he pulled the door open with a long creak. Aubrey stepped to the side, her arms crossed over her chest, part of her wanted to pull the warmth in. The other part thought that if she held tight enough maybe it would keep her bones from falling into a pile on the soft grassy floor like an old Steamboat Mickey cartoon.

He flipped open his chrome zippo and it gave an instant orange glow to the car. Beca could see now that it had more to offer than just ash. There was a half-smoked cigar and a few ketchup packets that had yet to be unopened. She never took Wilken’s as the one to get fast food, but she couldn’t’ blame him.

She glanced up, frowning as the hot glow shaded half of her face in ghostly shadows that screamed in the night. “I don’t see them.”

She hadn’t noticed it before. The night dark and her heart echoing in her ears like a steel drum. The brown scratches against the edge of his cheek. Cutting across clear skin that was beading with cool moisture. A bruise stretched around them like a marking- a brand. A dead give-away.

Beca mumbled a few profanities before she stumbled back from the car altogether. It was useless anyway. The keys were gone, probably shoved into someone’s pocket. It was nothing but a barrier. Aubrey nearly caught her, but Beca was quick, once again grasping for the gun- breath thick with the scent of blood that seeped into the soil like water. She didn’t pull it, not just yet.

“What happened to your face?” She asked, the girls watching from the hood.

He laughed, scoffed really. “What?”

“Your cheek. It’s scratched. What happened?”

Jesse glanced around; four blinking eyes boring into his. His fingers reached up to the welt, barely noticeable when the light from the zippo vanished in his movements. “I work in a kitchen, Beca. I nicked it is all, no big deal.”

Beca tightened her grip around the gun. She was fast. It was somewhat natural of her now, to pull it- to have the adrenaline rush through her veins. Fast was something she had always been: Fast with excuses and fast when it came to dodging the local law enforcement through city streets.

Jesse was faster. Her pulled Chloe flush against his body as she let out a sharp scream, as much as she could muster. He moved her arm against her chest, keeping her in one place with the tip of a hunting knife against the edge of her throat- once more in peril. The steel blinding against a browning bruise. Emily stumbled into Aubrey, pressing her fingers against her lips.

“It was you at the lake-“She said, voice tight. “You tried to drown me!”

“Yeah, I did. And maybe if I had you’d have a better chance at finding your keys.”

“Why?!” Beca yelled over his last words. Tears were threatening to boil over. They were dripping down Chloe’s muddied cheeks in clean lines. Her fingers dug into Jesse’s arm, struggling to keep it from pressing too hard. “Why are you doing this? Tell me or I’ll shoot!”

“You’re not that good of a shot, Mitchell, don’t fool yourself.” He hissed; words reaped with poison. “I’ll shove this blade into her carotid artery before you even have a chance. She’ll bleed out just like your mall cop did.”

Beca sniffed, pulling in as much oxygen she could as she pushed the base of her palms against her forehead out of frustration, the gun pointed to the sky for just a moment before it was aimed back at its target. Her eyes were red, the tears finally spilling over and dripping past her chin.

“Do it,” Chloe choked out. “Beca, it has… it has to stop. It’s okay, look at me.”

She struggled, swallowed in a gulp of cold forest air. Chloe’s eyes looked bluer than they ever had before. Maybe it was the dull moonlight or the darkness of Jesse shielding her from the rest of the world. But there was honesty there. It was warm. The only warmth she had felt all night.

Her voice was one with the camp, a demand. “Do it.”

Beca let out a scream of frustration, closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger.

#Beca Mitchell #Chloe Beale #Aubrey Posen #Emily Junk #Bechloe #Junksen

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writing-instead-of-fighting · 4 years

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I did it!!🎉🎉

10,121 words!

So, as promised, the complete chapter 1 of Sunstruck. (Please be aware that this is unedited and will naturally have mistakes)

Enjoy!!

[[Read More]]

Chapter One

“We hope that you will reconsider,” said the woman with a monotone voice, not looking up from her computer screen. “Please come again soon, and enjoy your day.”

Honor rolled her eyes, but grabbed the plastic bag from the counter. The next customer stepped up, and the process started all over again.

She walked out in the crisp autumn air, wishing she had a thicker coat. People surrounded her almost immediately. Everyone was trying to get places. Honor tightened her grip on the plastic bag.

Someone bumped into her, and Honor flashed him a middle finger. He didn’t notice, his eyes glued to his phone.

“Jerk,” Honor mumbled under her breath. She ran a hand through her brown curls, mussing them up. For once, she didn’t care. She didn’t have anyone to impress today.

The city was bustling, which was perfect for Honor. Cars and buses lined the streets, and people covered nearly every square inch of the sidewalk. Most of the stores were open, and Honor took a chance, following a group of oblivious tourists inside. But, while they ogled the wares, she snatched a couple snack foods from a display and slunk back outside. No use staying longer than she needed to.

The sun was brighter when she got out of the fourth store, her pockets bulging with snacks. She rubbed a speck off her most ambitious prize: a shiny red apple.

She rounded the corner to Market Square, taking a bite out of the apple. She savored the taste for a moment, her eyes fluttering shut. Juicy and crisp and delicious. There was a reason apples were her favorite food.

There was a crowd gathering in Market Square, around the fountain in the middle. Honor had been there many times, splashing in the water or sometimes picking out the wishing coins. If people were going to just throw them in there they deserved to be stolen.

She stepped closer, seeing a familiar face and tousled red hair standing unusually close to a tall man wearing a hat. She was sure she’d see his hand in the man’s coat pocket if she got any closer.

“Berlin!” she hissed. The young boy turned around and blinked with wide brown eyes. Honor gestured him over. He sighed, digging his hand out of the man’s pocket and walking over quickly.

“That was gonna be a good haul!” Berlin complained. “He had a monster of a wallet.”

“He would’ve noticed,” Honor said with a shrug. “Never go for big wallets.”

“I could’ve taken it,” he sniffed. She smiled fondly, ruffling his hair. He shoved her away with a huff.

Berlin and his twin brother, Dexter, had always been a good friend of hers. They had met three years ago, in winter. Honor had been on her way to her shelter when she stumbled across two little redheaded boys in an alley. They were cold, surrounded by snow, and the younger one had a bad cold. She had taken them under her wing, teaching them how to survive on the streets.

“Do you know why everyone’s gathered?” Honor asked, frowning at all the people.

Berlin shrugged. “No idea. But I did see a lot of Defenders, and I think Zima Carter and Lowell Mahon were there too.”

Honor blinked. Zima Carter and Lowell Mahon? “Don’t they, like, never go outside or something?”

“I don’t know, I’m not an expert.” Berlin shrugged again. “You’d be better off asking the Junior Defender over there.” He pointed through the crowd, and Honor could barely see the grayish blue of the Defender’s uniforms through the people. “He’s kinda cute.”

She flushed, shoving his arm. “Berlin!”

He cackled. “What? I’m just speaking the truth here.”

Honor huffed. “Go find your brother and head to my base, dinner’s on me tonight.” She held up the plastic bag with a triumphant grin, and Berlin’s eyes grew wide.

“Woah!” he said, “How’d you even- I mean, how’d you-”

“Took up a couple of odd jobs a few weeks back,” Honor said nonchalantly, understanding what he was trying to ask. “Scraped up enough money to buy some good food. Now go get Dex, I’m going to investigate what’s happening here.”

Berlin laughed, running off and vanishing into the steadily growing crowd. Dexter must be around somewhere, no doubt stealing something.

She sighed, then tightened her grip on the bag and pushed through the throngs of people.

Like Berlin had said, Lowell Mahon was in the center of the Square, standing on some sort of makeshift stage that they had probably thrown together that morning. Honor imagined going up and kicking it down. That would be fun.

Lowell cleared his throat, tapping on the end of a megaphone that he clutched in his hand. A screech echoed through the square. Honor, along with several people around her, threw their hands up to cover their ears.

“Sorry,” Lowell said, the megaphone amplifying his already scratchy voice, sending it booming through all the people. He took a moment to smooth out his equally as scratchy looking salt and pepper beard.

“Good evening, people of New Richmond!” he said, starting again. Luckily, the mic didn’t protest. “As you probably know, my name is Lowell Mahon, public spokesperson of the Defenders.” He coughed, probably looking for applause in the silence.

No one clapped. Someone near Honor said bless you.

Lowell cleared his throat. “Anyway, I am here today on behalf of Commander Theo Miller, with a presentation that I am sure will thrill you all to the core!”

Honor rolled her eyes. God, this was dumb. It was always the same thing with this guy, this was the same speech he had made last night in California. She had seen it on tv.

She turned around, bumping into a guy wearing a hood and sunglasses. “Sorry,” she whispered, brushing past him. She frowned when she was out of sight, rubbing her arm. His skin, even through the jacket he was wearing, was burning hot.

“We know these are difficult times,” Lowell continued, pacing across the stage, “and I just want you all to know that the Defenders are here for you no matter what challenges you’re going through.”

Honor snorted.

“Now, for our-” he coughed. “Sorry, YOUR entertainment today, we have a very special surprise. Zima, if you will?”

Zima Carter pushed through a cluster of Defenders, her hand tight on the shoulder of a handcuffed woman. Honor paused, interested. The woman had a bag over her head, and she wondered what the poor woman had done to deserve that treatment.

The woman was pushed up onto the stage, nearly tumbling into Lowell, who backed up as quick as possible before she could touch him.

“Get that bag off,” he ordered the closest Defender, who visibly hesitated. Honor moved closer again, her curiosity piqued.

“Well?” said Zima firmly, her voice honey smooth, “You heard him. Get the bag off her head.”

The Defender stepped onto the stage, fidgeting with their thick, blue leather gloves. Honor watched with baited breath as they tugged the bag off the woman’s head, revealing a shock of bright white hair and a face so pale she looked like a ghost. The woman’s eyes were closed tight.

The crowd around Honor started mumbling.

“This,” said Lowell, preening under the crowd’s attention. Honor snorted. She could see why he was the spokesperson, he knew how to work a crowd. “Is Viola Costa.”

Honor frowned. She recognized the name, she just wasn’t sure where she knew it from. She wracked her brain, trying to remember any details.

One of the people beside her, a teenager with brown hair and a face speckled with acne, leaned over to his neighbor. “Isn’t that the chick with cancer?”

His buddy shoved him. “No you idiot, that’s the girl who snuck into Old Richmond a couple weeks ago.”

“Oh.” The first guy frowned. “I thought they said she died or somethin’. What’s she still doing here?”

The second guy shrugged. “Who cares. But she doesn’t have long left, she’s obviously Sunstruck.”

Oh. That was where Honor recognized her from. Viola Costa had been on the news for days last week, each article talking about how she had broken past hundreds of Defender guards and snuck into the Drip site of Old Richmond. Honor hadn’t cared, at the time she was busy working, but now she could marvel at the bravery. Not many people were willing to defy the Defenders, but there had been talk of how they maybe weren’t telling the people everything.

“As I’m sure you all know, she tried breaking into a Drip site last week. Luckily, the Defenders apprehended her, and brought her into custody.”

Honor snorted. Now, that was a lie if she’d ever heard one.

“We have brought her here today to make an example of her.”

“No!” shouted a new voice. Someone stepped up to the stage, the man Honor had bumped into earlier. His hood was still on, as were his sunglasses, but she could see pale hands shaking in fury by his sides. Viola’s closed eye twitched.

Lowell paused, bringing the megaphone down. “Excuse me?” he asked. “Who are you?”

The unknown man ignored him. “No,” he repeated, voice gravelly. “She will not be a pawn in your game.”

The Defenders around the ring, mixed in with the front row of people, lifted their guns and trained them on the man. Honor could see the little red pinpricks of the lazer targeting pop up on his hoodie. He ignored them and took a step closer to the stage.

“Let her go,” he said, and Zima started moving forward.

Viola gasped, opening her eyes, and dropping to her knees.

They were like nothing Honor had ever seen before. Swirls of orange and yellow and white, with speckles of red all over. Her eyes looked like miniature suns.

“Leo?” she asked, frantically swinging her head around, trying to find him. “Is that you?”

“Yes!” shouted the hooded man. “Yes, it’s me!”

“Where are you?” she asked. “I can’t see you.”

The hooded man pushed past the Defenders guarding the stage, running up beside Viola and dropping to his knees. Lowell stumbled away, dropping the megaphone in his haste. “I’m here,” he said softly, grabbing her shoulder. “I’m here.”

His hood dropped, revealing muted, off white hair, just a few shades away from Viola’s.

He was Sunstruck too.

“What the hell,” whispered Zima. She turned to the crowd of people, waving her hands. “Get out of here!” she yelled.

There was an immediate reaction from the people around Honor. They turned, running back to the safety of their houses. Honor didn’t have that luxury.

She ducked as the Defenders started firing, screaming and covering her ears. The plastic bag went flying off her arm, skidding and bursting in an explosion of food. The noise from the gunshots was deafening, echoing around the square. Across the square, she saw someone else do the same. A small figure. Berlin.

Then it stopped, and she looked up, slowly uncovering her ears. Berlin disappeared from sight.

Leo and Viola were standing in the center of the stage, hands interlocked and slightly glowing. Honor blinked. Was she imagining things? People couldn’t just… glow.

“Stand down,” Viola said, staring unblinking forward. Leo said nothing, his sunglasses slipping down the bridge of his nose.

Lowell snorted. He wasn’t on the stage anymore, he was down on the ground beside Zima. “Why should we?” he shouted. Zima elbowed him in the gut.

“Shut up!” she hissed.

“You don’t want to know what we’ll do if you don’t.”

Honor held her breath, swallowing. Then a hand was placed on her shoulder, and another one over her mouth before she could scream.

“Don’t scream, please don’t scream!”

It was the junior Defender from earlier, the one that Berlin had pointed out through the crowd.

His eyes were wide and amber colored, like honey, and his dark hair was ruffled. There was a small tear in his uniform that removed the original perfect impression Honor had gotten.

“Why are you still here?” he whispered, moving his hand off her mouth. “You should have left with the others.”

Honor shook her head. “I have to find my…” she said, hesitating. “Little brother.” That was basically what Berlin was to her, so it wasn’t exactly a lie.

He sighed, but nodded. “Okay. That’s fine, we can find him.” He held out a hand. “I’m Cale. Cale Alby.”

“Honor.” She nodded at him. “I’m pretty sure he’s around here somewhere. I saw him earlier.”

Cale bit his lip. “We need to avoid the Sunstruck.”

“You heard her!” yelled Leo as several Defenders moved closer. “She said stand down!”

“We don’t take orders from a Sunstruck,” Zima said darkly. She waved the soldiers forward.

Leo looked at Viola, who nodded. He took a deep breath and let go of her hand, stepping off the edge of the stage.

Honor gasped, not because he fell, but because he didn’t.

He floated above the ground like a miniature star, glowing and white-hot. She couldn’t tear her eyes away as he tilted his head to the side, a smile flicking across his face. He rubbed his hands together, sparks flying out.

“So,” Leo said, his sunglasses finally slipping off and falling to the ground. “Who wants to play a little game?”

Taglist:

@sunlight-and-starskies

#wip sunstruck #nano 2019 #my writing

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rosegoldachievement · 6 years

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Where Good Girls Go To Die (chapter 1)

pairing: fahc x reader

word count: 1,987

series: Where Good Girls Go To Die

summary: You're not quite sure what compelled you to move to the infamous city of Los Santos, a ruthless playground for drug dealers, washed-up celebrities, and criminals alike. It was very different from your small hometown in the middle of nowhere, where nothing ever happened and you couldn't even leave your house without running into someone you knew, but perhaps that was part of the attraction. But, after running into your ex-best friend, Jeremy Dooley, you began to think Los Santos wasn't so bad as it seemed. Well, until the bank you worked at got robbed and you managed to get kidnapped all in the same week, leading you to become stuck in a penthouse with six very deadly males.

chapter one / chapter two

Chapter One: Lil’ Cups of Coffee

The sun rose above the skyline, painting it various shades of pink and orange. Beams of light shone directly through the blinds and onto your face, causing you to throw the blankets over yourself.

“Fuck off.” You mumbled, trying to block out the luminescence from the other end of the room.

When you had first entered your new apartment the night previous, you immediately could tell the city’s nightlife four floors below would be hard to adapt to. Whizzing cars and alarms lasted past nightfall, making you toss and turn in your bed. It didn’t help that you were ninety percent sure gunshots had gone off only a few streets down from yours at around three in the morning.

It had taken you five minutes to retreat from the darkness of your sheets and get up from the bed, going through the obstacle course of unpacked boxes that cluttered your room.

You had finally managed to make it to your kitchen without dying and began to rummage through the boxes on the island for the one labeled ‘kitchen appliances’. After a few minutes of searching, you found it and pulled out the coffee machine. This was only one of many graduation presents from your family, and just like most of the others, it was unused and still in its original packaging.

After finally setting up the machine and making a pot of coffee, you began to unpack the boxes that were scattered across the dining area. It was quite a chore, but you knew it had to get done sometime..

The clock showed ten o’clock in the morning when you finished unpacking. You had managed to create a home for every object, developing a comfy atmosphere. Yet, when you were cleaning, you couldn't help but notice the lack of food in your fridge. Your parents didn't enjoy the concept of you taking the food they had on your move, so you settled for knowing you would have to go shopping once you arrived at your new town.

“I guess it's time for a shopping trip.” If you remembered correctly, there was a small plaza with convenience store a few blocks away from your apartment building. After changing into a pair of comfy sweatpants and a thin tee-shirt and exiting your apartment. you walked down the four flights of stairs to the ground floor. From there, you walked out of the double glass doors and watched as the city bloomed to life upon walking onto the sidewalk.

Your attempt to dodge the clusters of people while walking was fruitless, clipping some shoulders as you went down the street. The differences between Los Santos and your hometown were like black and white. At home, you could go blocks without seeing anyone but here, you couldn't even step without stepping on someone's foot.

By the time you pulled yourself out of your thoughts, you had arrived at the plaza the store was in. From the looks of it, the other places that inhabited the lot were a laundromat, tattoo parlor, and pizza place. You were about to enter your set destination when someone suddenly bumped into you, causing you to lose your balance and fall.

“Fuck,” a somewhat familiar voice grumbled. You looked up to see brown eyes that you had glimpsed at many times throughout the years but rather foreign green hair.

“Jeremy?” You managed to ask, mouth agape. The male seemed to be taken back from hearing his name, studying your features before realizing who you were.

“Y/n?” He offered a hand to help you up, which you gladly accepted. After he pulled you to your feet, you couldn't believe that your ex best friend, Jeremy Dooley, was stood in front of you. The same Jeremy Dooley who packed up his old beat up truck the morning of his eighteenth birthday and left the town without saying goodbye to anyone, including you. In that moment, you wanted to question his choices. Yet, you felt like you had already known the answer.

“Uh, yeah. It’s been awhile, huh?” You allowed your thoughts to quickly dissolve into the back of your brain. An eternity of silence seemed to slip over the two of you before a bright smile overtook his features. He seemed to gaze down at the watch on his wrist before putting his attention back on you.

“You in a rush? If not, I’d love to take you out to get some coffee and talk for a little. My treat.” You opened your mouth to admit you were actually on your way to shop and politely excuse yourself, but the words that escaped your mouth were anything but.

“Coffee sounds great,Jer.”

“Alright, cool. I know a place we can walk to from here. C’mon.” Jeremy began to walk the way in which he came, only leaving you to follow. As you caught up him and your footsteps fell in line with his, you couldn’t help but question your own feelings in the moment. Half of you was eager to learn how Jeremy has been all of these years, but the other half hated how casual this seemed. You even used his old nickname, for fuck’s sake.

Jeremy ended up leading you to an ally. You were about to question him when you noticed a blinking neon sign saying ‘Rimmy Tim’s’ hung up above a descending staircase. The sign casted tinted the ally with its custom colors, which happened to be an very distasteful purple and orange.

“Y/n?” Your vision drifted from the sign to see Jeremy lingering below it, his right hand lightly grasping the handrail. “You coming?” A sudden sound of embarrassment came from your lips as you quickly nodded your head, going back to his side once more.

At the bottom of the staircase stood frosted glass double doors, serving as an entrance way to the shop. With one hand, Jeremy opened the large door, revealing the coffee shop behind it. As Jeremy expertly guided you to a specific table, you began to observe your surroundings. The strong scent of coffee beans hung in the air as you passed by the front counter. The color scheme of Rimmy Tim’s matched the outside, the interior design seemingly as mix of industrial and nautical. This created a peaceful aura, which was something you needed after moving. You wouldn’t expect a gem like this to be tucked underground the city of Los Santos.

“Do you come here often?” You asked, slipping into the booth that Jeremy had picked out. You expected him to do the same, but he just stood next to the table.

“You could say that. I’m going to get us something to drink.” You began to stand up, but Jeremy immediately shook his head.

“Nope, you stay here.” Your eyebrows knitted together as you shot him a confused look.

“Jeremy, you don’t even know my order.” Jeremy was quick to dismiss your concerns, waving his hand as if swatting them away.

“Trust me, I’ll figure it out. Now sit.” Reluctantly, you sat down and Jeremy took his victory in stride as he turned on his heel and headed towards the front counter. While you awaited Jeremy’s return, you found yourself playing with different apps on your phone. You had just completed a very difficult level in a puzzle game when he returned, placing a white ceramic coffee cup down in front of you. As he sat down across from you, you looked down in the hopes to identify what he had gotten you. The top was covered with whipped cream, so you couldn’t exactly figure out the exact contents of your drink. Jeremy took a sip of what seemed to be some kind of iced drink before speaking.

“Go ahead, try it.” He gestured to the cup in front of you. You casted him a look of uncertainty, causing him to chuckle. “Y/n, just taste it.” With a sigh, you raised the cup up to your lips and took a small sip. As the liquid touched your tongue, a sense of familiarity rushed over you. Your (eye color) eyes flashed upwards, making contact with Jeremy’s.

“Is this a cafe mocha?” You smiled, taking another sip, this one bigger than the last. Jeremy’s smile grew as he nodded. Memories of junior year of high school flooded your brain, Jeremy and you sitting at one of the only coffee shops in town and talking for hours on end. A sad smile crossed over your lips, thinking about all of the days you had spent there, nursing a drink identical to the one you had now.

“Just like the one at home, right? I wasn’t sure if you still liked them, but I wanted to give it a shot.” He watched as you enjoyed your drink, taking a sip of his own before continuing to speak. “Speaking of home, why aren't you there?” You rested your coffee on the table, your hands still wrapped around the cup, enjoying the warmth it was giving off.

“I moved here yesterday.” Jeremy’s face contorted into a shocked expression, a silence lingering in the air between you. It took him awhile to formulate the words, but after a minute, Jeremy spoke up.

“Why did you move here? A city, nonetheless? Weren’t you always the one saying you wanted to settle down and make a family back home?” Well, he wasn’t wrong. Jeremy moved to your small, quaint town the summer before fourth grade from Boston. His rebunkous self refused to conform to the country background of your town. Ever since you had known Jeremy, he had been claiming he was going to move back to the city one day. You idolized his ambition and need for change, but your small town was all you had ever known. But, once Jeremy left, you realized that his spontaneous behavior was what made your town bearable.

“Yeah. I know what you mean. It’s just things started to get….” You trailed off, trying to figure out where you were going with that sentence before shrugging. “I don’t know, boring, I guess?” Jeremy’s mouth swung open to answer, but the sound of his phone going off averted his attention.

“Shit, I gotta take this. I’m sorry.” A frown formed on his face once he read the caller ID.

“It’s fine, take your time.” You told him, raising your coffee to your lips. With that, Jeremy answered the call and walked away.

After a few minutes, Jeremy returned, still bearing a frown.

“Hey, I’m really sorry to do this but, that was work. I gotta go.” You sighed, but understood.

“It’s alright, I understand. It was really nice catching up with you, Jeremy. Thanks for the coffee.” Jeremy’s frown quickly turned into a smile at your words.

“No problem. I’ll cya around, I guess.” Jeremy jammed his hand into his pocket and turned around. A second seem to pass before he sighed, quickly turning back around to face you. “Sorry, I was just wondering, uh, can I put my number in your phone?” He suddenly asked. You smiled and nodded, picking your phone up from the table and handing it over to him.

“Yeah, of course!” Jeremy quickly put his information in and handed you back his phone. The moment he did this, his phone buzzed, indicating he received a message. After checking it, you heard him mumble something under his breath.

“Alright, I’m coming. Calm the fuck down, Geoff.” You brought yourself not to question this, since it seemed like Jeremy was only talking to himself. “Alright, y/n. Text me whenever you get the time.” And with that, you watched your former best friend walk away and disappear out of the frosted double doors at the front of Rimmy Tim’s. Staring at the half-empty cup he left across from you, you found yourself chuckling.

“Maybe moving here won’t be so bad after all.”

#achievement hunter au #achievement hunter x reader #rooster teeth x reader #fahc x reader #fahc #achievement hunter fanfic #gavin free x reader #jeremy dooley x reader #jack pattillo x reader #michael jones x reader #ryan haywood x reader #geoff ramsey x reader #achievement hunter reader insert

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pinche-vida · 6 years

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Stars in Your Eyes, Death at Your Throat [part 7]

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It took all of Lance’s willpower to stand upright. The sentries grabbed him from his cell a few vargas ago, threw a cloak on him and kept shoving him into motion. From the halls of the ship, to a cramped cargo transport, to a bustling city. He’s brought past a busy vendor market with dozens of people roaming from stall to stall. His head is shoved down every time he tries to look at his surroundings, but he still tries to lift it up and pay attention to their surrounding.

Wait.

He wiggles a bit to turn around, stretching his neck as much as possible and like a finely tuned machine, the sentries grab his shoulders and twist him forward.

A sigh passes his lips. With another push, he's back to trudging behind a sentry. Maybe he's going delirious, but that citizen kind of looked like Keith.

Logistically speaking, that would be terrible.

But he still wishes he could see him one more time.

The guards stop suddenly and take his cloak off. A shiver travels through his body. He’s behind the stage of some large platform in the town’s plaza.There are several Galra crew members working on sound and camera shots that are noticeably watching him. It almost feels like being backstage of his junior high theater, which makes him feel a little bit better about the ever-present fluttering nerves.

Haggar’s voice is echoing throughout the curtains he’s positioned in front of. Lance can hear her hype the crowd up and introduce him as the ‘Prince of Altea’ as if he hasn’t spent the past deca-phoeb as a Paladin. The chains around his arms are yanked forward by the sentry in front of him, and he’s able to see just how grand a spectacle they’re trying to make of him. There’s easily maybe 2,500 in the public space. All the purple faces in the crowd were clapping and stomping their feet at the sight of him.

It was terrifying.

He’s pulled past Haggar, who curled her lip at him in disgust, and is brought downstage - front and center for the masses.

His legs were trembling fiercely, he’s too stunned by the scene to move. Camera drones were zooming past him and recalculating their lens on him.

One of the sentries cuffs the side of his head when he doesn’t respond to them ordering him on his knees. Lance cries out and sharp pain explodes from the hit. He can feel both blood trickling down his face and the feeling of his hair changing back to silver.

His heart, already working so fast (the poor thing) is drumming so fast all he can hear is the thumping rhythm of babump-babump-babump, but he needs to get back on track.

Voltron must be watching, he's sure of it.

Haggar announces his execution, claiming this to be a sure step closer to eradicating the threat of the Altean Witch's clutch over Voltron.

Keith feels his blood go cold.

“I'm gonna puke,” Hunk groans out. He fumbles for a bag and begins to breathe in it.

“We have to go down there, we have to stop this,” Pidge demands. She looks at Shiro desperately, like he held a secret plan that he was waiting for the right moment to reveal it.

“We can't,” Shiro began, gritting his teeth. “It's a Central Command planet, if we tried, we'd just be decimated by the hundreds of fleets nearby. We have to trust in the Blade.” He stood beside Allura, hands on her shoulder for support.

In the distance, roaring and whining travel throughout the halls of the Castle.

They seem to snap Allura’s trance on the screen. She turns to Shiro, panicked and shouts, “I can't let him die again. We have to go!” He tries to calm her down and restrain her, but she easily flips him on his back and runs out of the room and into the Lion's hanger.

She sees that though Red is screaming his head off, he has not moved from his standing position. Blue, on the other hand, has fallen to the ground, limp and uncaring of how she's splayed on the ground. Low, pitiful, whimpering is rumbling from her.

Allura climbs into Blue's mouth and runs to the pilot seat. Full of reckless determination, she surges the controls forward, ready for whatever the Galra can try to throw her way.

Nothing happens.

Allura is baffled. She stares at the controls waiting for them to come to life.

They don't.

Allura surges the controls forward again, and again. She curls in on herself and screams.

“Why aren't you helping?” She cries out. “He's your paladin! Your true paladin, we need to save him. I need to save him!”

Blue lets out another sad moan, rumbling her seat. Allura hears Red roaring still outside. It doesn't make any sense. They both feel so frustrated, so resigned. They want to help, so why aren't they? Red did for Keith, why aren't they doing the same for him?

A video link pops up on her screen, the work of Pidge no doubt. It's the feed. Lance is looking around feverishly, a sentry guard pushes him forward and he growls as he stumbles forward. He's brought to the middle of the platform and forced to his knees with a hit to his temple. His hair changes to the beautiful shade of silver Allura thought she’d only be able to see again in her dreams. He looks out to the crowd and up at the cameras. Realization flickers across his disoriented face and he becomes sickly pale.

Allura has never felt so utterly useless. Princess to a people no more, leader to the last shred of hope in the universe who couldn't stop her paladin from being abducted from the palm of her hands, and a big sister who could do nothing but watch as her baby brother was captured and paraded by the same monsters that destroyed their planet.

She hears movement from behind her and sees Shiro at the cockpit door. He seems unsure of what to say, but in the end, says nothing but walks up to her seat and leans down to wraps Allura in his arms.

Keith's eyes darted across the rooftops and no longer sees any movement. His heart is racing seeing Lance petrified on the platform.

Haggar is giving some spiel about Lotor's 'brave task’. Lotor is standing beside her, his eyes scanning the area.

Their eyes meet.

Lotor looks like he understands something Keith doesn't, because he smirks once he sees him and continues to scan the area.

Keith wants to kill Lotor for taking Lance, for hurting Lance. His hands clench into fists. The agents by his side (he can't help but think of them as babysitting) pulse their grip on him to remind him to follow orders. He grits his teeth as he sees Lance’s eyes furiously darting around the plaza. He's looking for them, no doubt, for the Blade - for Keith.

Haggar brings out a tall Galran wield a broadsword.

When Lance sees it, an odd sense of understanding finally breaks through.

Voltron isn’t coming, the Blade isn’t coming, there’s no secret group of town rebels that are going to break him free.

This is it.

When he thinks about all the torture, pain and fear he’s gone through, he thinks about his team. Coran, and Allura. Shiro, Hunk, Pidge. Keith. In a way, he’s glad things worked out the way they did, because he’s so relieved none of them went through this (in Shiro’s case, went through this a third time.)

She asks Lance if he has any last words. The mic source is switched. A smaller drone appeared before Lance waiting for his words. The crowd begins to boo, but it’s quickly shut down from a single hand raise from Lotor.

He gulps and closes his eyes with a deep inhale, and opens them with a slow exhale.

“I, um.” He laughs, shallow and nervously. “Pidge,” he calls out.

Pidge covers her mouth, tears threatening to fall.

“You're the smartest, person I know, I'm glad to have you as a lil' sis, I know you'll find Matt and your dad soon.” The tears start to fall and she crumples to the ground.

Hunk kneels down to comfort her and snaps head up when he hears his name. “My man, who needs a soulmate when you've got a soulbrother? Don't stop cooking your awesome food, don't stop giving out your awesome hugs, and if you see my family before I do, tell them I love them, I love you man!” Hunk’s curled his arms around Pidge and they're both sobbing profusely.

“Coran, and Shiro, thanks for managing our ragtag team. I know I haven't always been the greatest paladin,” Coran gasps at the screen.

“No, my dear boy, you are the greatest paladin I have had the pleasure of meeting.”

“But I'm glad I was able to help where I could. You guys got this. Allura, I wish we could’ve talked about this.” He gestures to his body. “I can’t even imagine what’s going through your mind, but it’s not your fault. Keep fighting the good fight.”

Her face is twisted with grief and anger, although her gritted teeth stop her from wailing, tears are streaming from her squinting eyes.

Lance scans the crowd once more and in the sea of Galra, finally finds Keith and the two agents restraining him. He can’t stop the small smile that blossoms on his face. Keith stills, realizing Lance can see him. His gut wrenches, wondering what could be going through Lance's head seeing Keith there not doing anything, especially given the last time they spoke.

Lance looks so sad, but is smiling nonetheless. “They can kill me, but I won't die. I can't die as long as hope is alive.” He takes a deep breath, eye locked onto Keith’s. “Keith,” He looks like he wants to say so much. Haggar signals the executioner, tired of the paladin’s rant. Keith feels his mouth open, and frustrated, angry, scared tears fall. What was the Blade doing? Why haven't they leaped to the stage and saved him? Why wouldn't they let Keith leap to the stage to save him?

“Keith, I love you.”

A choked out moan leaves his mouth. Keith's never felt anything like this before. He feels both the happiest and most heartbroken he can ever remember being. His heart feels like it's soaring, flying straight to the sun. His insides feel so shriveled and there is a fire burning inside him.

The executioner approached the kneeling Lance.

Keith's getting on that stage if it kills him.

He jumps up in place and swoops each leg around one of the legs of the agents. He brings all three of them down and gets up just as quick. He rips the thin mask covering his mouth off and pushes forward, shoving anyone from the crowd in his way. Lance is still looking at him, hasn't taken his eyes off of him and Keith refuses to break that contact.

The executioner raises their broadsword.

“Lance! Lance!” Keith screams over and over again. Just a little more time, he's almost there. Lance slowly closes his eyes.

The executioner swings down, cutting through Lance's neck with ease. The crowd goes into a wild roar, yelling and cheering louder than before.

Keith feels like a knife has plunged itself into his chest. He screams louder than he's ever screamed before.

Sobs wrack Allura's body, and Shiro holds on to her as if she were a lifeline, turning to shield her from the screen.

Pidge burrows herself into Hunk's arms. Coran Is still locked onto the screen. The sound of metal cutting through Lance's flesh is sickeningly wet and when his body to slump, Coran sinks down to his knees, arms still fiercely gripping the rails. His head lobs forward and looks at the ground. His chest feels so hollow. He covers his mouth and wails so freely that his nose begins to leak. Slav, who has kept himself apart from as much activity as he could, is to the wall and refuses to blink, keeping his eyes glued to the screen, scanning, searching for something.

As Lance's body falls on the platform floor, explosions rip throughout the open space. Cheers turn to terrified shouting as the crowd begins to run in different directions. Keith is flung back from the explosion and everything hurts. It hurts so much, he begins feels numb. Shock, some part of his mind suggests. He props himself on his elbows and sees the agents he knocked down earlier running to the platform site.

Lance, Keith thinks, getting to his feet. He stumbles toward the platform, still covered in dust and smoke. Four Marmorans jump out of the smoke, with sentries following close behind, one Marmoran is tackled by a guard and turns to fight him off. The largest Marmoran grabs Keith by his waist and flings him over their shoulder.

Keith's vision swims from the frenzy. “No,” he croaks out. “Stop, we have to go back.” He tries in vain to crawl off of the agent's shoulder. They are running in full sprint to reach their extraction zone. Keith watches with blurry, tear stained eyes as the platform and the chaos surrounding it becomes farther and farther to the point of bleeding into the horizon. His face scrunches as new tears fall and he continues to shout Lance's name.

#langst #klangst #lance #keith #klance #voltron fic #Stars and Death #oops my finger slipped #just one more chapter left!!#VidaWrites #mine

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onewfantaesy · 7 years

Text

secret boyfriends pt.4

pt.1 / pt.2 / pt.3

By the time the Homecoming dance came around, Taemin was sick of his mom bugging him about why he hadn’t asked anyone and whether or not he needed to buy a corsage or a boutonniere and what color vest and tie he needed. He loved his mom, he really truly did, but she was so overbearing when it came to school dances that it made Taemin want to flop face-first onto the couch and just let her run around to do everything for him. That being said, he also didn’t want to wear a light lavender vest or have a giant boutonniere when he didn’t publicly have a date. Instead, he and Kai had settled on wearing similar shades of green and not having any stupid flowers pinned to their coats, all the while not telling anyone - save for Jinki - that they were going together.

“We’re both going stag,” they told their friends.

“Dates are such a pain in the ass, anyways,” Taemin said with a snort as he listened to them talk about what kind of corsage to buy.

Nevertheless, Taemin thought it was absolutely hilarious when Jimin asked him at practice if he was going to ask their sophomore friend on the dance team to Homecoming.

“No,” Taemin laughed. “Why?”

“So you’re cool if I ask her?” he whispered. “Like, you wouldn’t be pissed.”

“Not at all,” Taemin assured him. “Go for it, dude.”

“Nice,” Jimin muttered. “Now I just gotta figure out how to ask her.”

“Bring her a flower or a teddy bear or something,” Taemin said with a shrug. “Maybe do her Latin homework for her.”

“I don’t even take Latin.”

“I would go with you if you did my Latin homework,” Taemin told him.

“I’ll just get flowers or something,” Jimin said, and he took a gulp of water before they had to go back to practicing.

Taemin just shook his head and followed after him before their coach could yell at him for being the last one back from break again.

The weeks leading up to Homecoming also had Taemin not-so-subtly campaigning to get his brother elected for Homecoming King once it was announced that the senior class made him one of the Princes.

“VOTE FOR JINKI!” Taemin shouted during the JV football game two weeks before Homecoming. “JINKI FOR HOMECOMING KING! Hey, you, freshmen! Vote for Jinki for Homecoming King!”

“Who should we vote for for Queen?” one of them asked.

“Hell if I know, just vote for my brother. JINKI FOR HOMECOMING KING!” Taemin said, walking up and down the bleachers with Jimin who held up a sign they had made at dance practice two days prior.

“HE’S THE COOLEST NERD OF THE SENIOR CLASS WITH THE VOICE OF AN ANGEL! VOTE FOR JINKI FOR HOMECOMING KING! THE SENIOR CLASS’S RESIDENT CHOIR NERD! VOTE FOR JINKI!”

“Can you, like, not?” Jinki hissed, throwing a Pixie Stick he got from the snack bar at Taemin’s head.

“Hey, asshole, if you get my uniform extra dirty, I’m telling Mom!” Taemin threatened, throwing the Pixie Stick right back at him.

“Stop being my campaign manager, you little twerp, that’s Minho’s job,” Jinki said.

“Why wasn’t Minho voted to Homecoming Court, anyways?” Taemin asked him. “How’s he not, like, the entire Homecoming Court? He oozes school spirit.”

“He wants Prom King,” Jinki said.

“People actually want to be on Prom Court?” Jimin asked. “I thought those were Homecoming rejects?”

“Don’t kill his dream,” Jinki hissed at the two sophomores. “Now go away, and stop yelling for people to vote for me.”

“Fine, when you lose, don’t come crying to me,” Taemin warned him, and he turned on his heel to march right back to where the dance team was sitting, Jimin hot on his heels.

Naturally, during the half-time show at the Homecoming game a couple weeks later, Jinki was announced as Homecoming King. Taemin screamed so hard for him on the sidelines that he couldn’t cheer as loud during the second half of the game, not even when Minho made the winning touchdown.

By the time the actual dance came around, Taemin and Jinki’s friends all met at their house. Jinki had his little Homecoming King crown on his head, and his vest and tie matched the pale pink color of his date’s dress - he was going with some junior girl named Luna.

Taemin’s own vest and bow-tie were a blue-ish teal, according his mom. She of course made Taemin and Jinki take approximately ten-thousand pictures together, and she even started tearing up when she realized it was Jinki’s last Homecoming.

Kai had rented his suit from the same place Jinki and Taemin rented theirs, and the color of his vest and bow-tie were only a few shades darker than Taemin’s. Their moms all made them take tons of pictures with their friends, and Taemin and Kai’s moms both made them take pictures together since they were the only two “without a date.”

Kai’s mom seemed particularly keen about getting pictures of them together, so Taemin of course indulged her and held Kai’s hands like they were both slow dancing and made dumb faces for half of them. She did, however, coax the both of them to stand nicely next to each other and smile politely. Taemin felt like his heart was going to beat out of his chest when Kai put his arm around his waist and pulled him closer.

When they got to the gym and had to check in at the front doors, Taemin of course whined when he saw his dance coach as one of the chaperones. He even made sure he complained to her about how long the lines was just to get inside.

“It’s cold outside you know,” he told her as she highlighted his name on the list.

“Then be glad you don’t have a date who needs your coat,” she told him with a smirk, and he scoffed at her.

“As if,” he muttered, and he moved to pull Kai inside to follow after their friends and their dates.

They claimed a table that was a good distance between the dance floor and the food tables, ate their pasta dinner from the Italian place down the street that had good bread rolls, and drummed their hands on the table when the the Homecoming King and Queen were getting ready to start the first dance.

A slow song played first, and Taemin and Kai stayed at their table as all their friends got up to dance with their dates. He did, however, snort out a laugh when he saw the Homecoming Queen’s date come and ask Jinki if he could steal his date back.

Jinki’s such a sweetheart though that he just immediately went back to his own date and twirled her around a couple times.

The second the fast songs started playing, though, Taemin and Kai left their coats on their chairs and left to go dance with their friends. In the middle of the dance floor, with half the student body surrounding them, Taemin never felt more comfortable with Kai half-way grinding on his ass. There were so many people packed like sardines in the middle off the gym that no one even noticed, and Taemin liked it that way.

When another slow song started to play, Taemin and Kai looked away from each other and their friends who were dancing with their dates. Taemin blew a huff of air out through his mouth and stalked over towards the dessert tables to grab a cookie, and Kai followed after him. Before Taemin could swipe one of the M&M cookies, a hand grabbed his wrist and pulled him towards where the coaches offices were off the side of the gym.

“What’d I do?” Taemin whined to his coach as he and Kai were both pulled into her office.

“Nothing,” she said, smiling at the two of them. “You two can dance together in here. When you’re done, go through the back and go back into the gym saying you went out to use the bathroom. If you do anything gross in here, I’ll write you up.”

Taemin and Kai both looked between each other before looking back at her, and she just laughed.

“Have fun, boys,” she said before leaving and closing the door.

The song was already a third of the way over, but after the door clicked closed, Kai tugged on Taemin’s vest and held his hands on his waist.

“Why am I the girl?” Taemin asked, wrapping his hands around Kai’s neck.

“Because you’re shorter,” he said.

“Jerk.”

Taemin crossed his wrists around the back of Kai’s neck and pressed himself closer.

It was sort of awkward, their steps were teeny-tiny, Taemin refused to look Kai in the eyes, and Kai’s hands would flinch every few seconds, but it was nice. They could still hear the music through all the walls of the gym offices, and the coach had only turned on the light she had on her desk instead of the overhead light so that it was still a little dark like it was in the gym where everyone else was dancing. When Kai stepped on Taemin’s foot a third time, Taemin just laughed and pressed the side of his face into Kai’s shoulder.

When another slow song came on right after, Taemin smiled and finally looked up at Kai’s face. Kai was blushing, his lips were thinned out, and Taemin let out a breath of a laugh at the sight before he kissed the side of his mouth.

“You’re cute,” Taemin told him.

“You’re cute, too,” Kai said.

Taemin’s shoulders bounced in a little laugh, and he put his head back on Kai’s shoulder.

“Maybe I’ll let you hold my hand when we go back inside,” Taemin whispered to him.

“Really?” Kai asked, pushing his head down to look at Taemin’s face.

“I said maybe,” Taemin teased him, and he just barely stretched his neck to peck Kai on the cheek.

“Can we please just tell our friends?” Kai whispered. “Not necessarily right now, but like, soon?”

“We can tell them after the party at Key’s place,” Taemin told him. “We’re invited, by the way. Perks of having a brother who’s the Homecoming King.”

“Sweet,” Kai hissed, moving his head to kiss the top of Taemin’s hair. “We’re gonna get schwasty.”

“Jinki’s driving us home, so we can get as fucked as we want,” Taemin told him, laughing. “You’re spending the night, by the way.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Kai sang. “Wanna go back?”

“I guess,” Taemin mumbled. “Just one last thing.”

“What?”

Taemin moved his head to kiss Kai on the lips, and he laughed at the way his eyebrows flicked up and the dumb grin that painted his face a moment later.

“Now hold my hand, stupid, it’s getting cold,” Taemin complained, twisting his fingers to link them with Kai’s and pulling him out of the offices to go around by the bathrooms.

When they walked back into the gym, no one even seemed to notice that Taemin and Kai were holding hands as Taemin pulled Kai along to weave them through all the dancing students to get to their table. Taemin went and got them both water, and they sat down next to each other while they talked with their friends about the party they were going to afterwards. While they talked, Taemin let his hand fall down under the table, and he linked his pinky-finger with Kai’s to swing between their chairs.

#taemin #kai #taekai #shinee #onew #aka homecoming and the events that sort of led up to it #very cute very nice it feels like i could end it here if i really wanted but i'll probably put lil snippets up still #this can be like the '''''''''official ending''''''''#but there is most likely more to come l m a o #because i still gotta write abt them telling ravi and their other nameless friends!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#i almost forgot to tag this as #secret boyfriends au

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oliver-dash · 7 years

Conversation

I was inspired to write a scene near the end of my novel at work today. I wanted to share.

And then, suddenly, it was Oliver that stood. There was a collective gasp, a soft murmur sent through the circle, Grace and Zelda simultaneously jumping to their feet to help steady him.

“Get off. Off. I’m fine.” He grumbled, a soft laugh in his voice. “I’ve been walkin’ for days. Off.”

They backed off but didn’t stray far, brows furrowed in nearly matching concern as he limped to the chair at the head of the group. Dr. Woods smiled softly at him, carefully sliding a leather guitar case over to him. I realized then that they had planned this.

And then Oliver began to speak in his soft, grumbling tone, the most I had ever heard him say. He told us that he was born to a mother who was fifteen and a father who was twenty-seven. He said they didn’t want a baby but his mother was scared to go to Hell because of her Catholic upbringing. He said she made this very clear to him. He said he didn’t remember much from his childhood. He remembered sleeping in a bare room on a mattress on the floor with a sheet. He remembered sneaking out of his room to grab scraps of food before sprinting back to his room because he’d get a beating if he was caught. He said he remembered the rotting wood of the front steps, the wallpaper peeling off the walls, the broken window in the back.

He most vividly remembered the physical, mental, verbal, and sexual abuse from the hands of his father.

“My mom was… is, I guess, an artist.” He supplied softly. “The house was full of her paintings and drawings and pottery. She came home one day with this… beautiful, and I mean that, beautiful vase she’d made. It was… yellow and blue and green and… I don’t know. I was eight. I was the most pretty damn thing I’d ever seen in this fuckin’ house that the sun didn’t even shine in. And I told her I thought it was pretty. And she smiled at me. And kissed my forehead. And then I woke up in the middle of the night and heard her car start up and she was gone. I still… don’t understand. I don’t know… I don’t know. I’m not gonna dwell on it. She had her chance to explain.”

A week after his mom left, his dad brought in this new woman who was heavily pregnant. She gave birth soon after to a little girl they named Catherine.

I exchanged a glance with Zelda at this. He’d never, not once, mentioned a little sister. Her expression made it clear to her that he hadn’t disclosed the information to her either.

“I hated her.” He said softly. “Because my dad and her mom loved her. They loved her so damn much. Baby talked her, hugged her, rocked her. She was quiet, hardly ever cried. And I hated her.” He took a deep, shaky breath before explaining how this woman, Catherine’s mother, hated him more than his own mother, how she’d hit him, throw things at him, lock him out of the house in the pouring rain.

“That’s how I found the church.” He shrugged. “It was storming and cold… This big building had all these people walking in so I snuck in with them and sat in the back. And I listened. I listened like they were telling me the damn meaning of life. I’d never been told about God and about Jesus, about Mary and Joseph.

“The collection plate came around and I started crying. I didn’t have anythin’ ta’ put in the plate and I thought they’d kick me out, that God and Jesus and Mary and Joseph would hate me for not being able to give them money. But there was literally nothin’ I could give them. I didn’t even have shoes.” He opened the guitar case with reverence, a sort of shine in his eyes. “The preacher came to me after the service and I told him why I was cryin’. I expected him to hit me or to yell at me – all adults did. But he got on his knees and hugged me and told me that God wanted my love, not my money, and that I had love in my heart. I asked him if God and Jesus loved me. He told me they loved me the most. And I went to church every Wednesday and every Sunday after that.”

He lifted the guitar strap over his shoulder.

“The preacher, Father Jacobs, is the one who taught me to play the guitar. He died when I was almost ten. Catherine’s mother died on my tenth birthday. She had pancreatic cancer. Father Jacobs was just… old. Very old.”

He gave a slow strum of the guitar, picking at the strings with expert movements.

“My dad disappeared. Was out every night, destroyed by the fact that she was dead. And one night, Cat, she was… right at two I think. She came up to me and tugged on my shirt.” He chuckled, clearing his throat, but the tears in his eyes were unmistakable. “She looked up and told me she was hungry. Called me bubby. And she had me wrapped around her finger from that moment on. I would have done anything for her. I found places that would pay me to mow grass or do small odd jobs just ta’ have a little money so she could eat. When I got older I worked three jobs to make sure she had food and clothes and could do dance and soccer and have a nice room and toys. I worked my ass off in football because I knew it was the only way I was going to go to college. I was damn good too. Set to be quarterback in my junior year.

“I… took beatin’s every night so he wouldn’t go in her room. Blamed it on fights. Everyone in town hated me because they thought I was just like my dad anyhow, so they believed it.

“I was fourteen and she was six when we found out that she had cancer.”

There was silence in the room at this point, not a word from anyone.

“Somethin’ in her lungs. She would… loose her breath and have seizures because she wasn’t getting enough oxygen to her brain. I got her medicine, made sure she took it, stopped eating so I could pay for chemo treatments. I worked at a diner and they would give me a meal there for free when they found out.

“She still played soccer and danced. She was the smartest kid in her class, had a high school reading level – I know, I went to the teacher-parent conferences.”

“But I was starting to… lose my grip. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t keep down food. I was smoking five packs of cigarettes a day that I stole from the damn gas station, more if I could get my hands on it. I was failing out of my classes, got kicked off the team because of it. I was lashing out, gettin’ in fights… And then my dog died . Little hound dog pup I’d found abandoned when I was seven. Fat, lazy mongrel I named Scraps. My dad beat him next to death but didn’t kill him and… I had to put him down myself. And I… goddamn it, I fuckin’ loved that stupid dog. He’d run with me in the mornin’s for about five minutes before he’d collapse under a tree and whine until I fed him. And… after comin’ home to that, I … I kept havin’ nightmares that I’d come home and he’d have done the same to Cat. I knew I had to give her up, that I… I had to report my dad and let them take her in the system, maybe get emancipated myself.”

“I went to the police and reported him February 17.

“My sister died February 18.” These words were said so soft I almost didn’t hear them. “She had gotten so bad and… We didn’t have anymore of her medicine and… my dad had stolen all of my money. I had been runnin’ back and forth all day with her, tryin’ to get some. We gave it to her when the pharmacy tech gave in, but… but we waited too long and it was too bad. She died in my arms as I was drivin’ over a hundred to get to the ER. And I… completely lost my mind. I… tracked my dad down. Found him at a bar. Threw him to the ground, was gonna kill him. It was his fault. It is his fault she’s gone.

“But I couldn’t actually kill him. I realized what I was doin’ that if… if Cat knew what I was doin’ she’d… she’d a been so damn disappointed in me. And I couldn’t take that.”

Oliver said his dad stood as he stopped fighting, the bar cheering on the father trying to hit his own son, but it took Oliver too long to realize there was a knife in his hand. He turned to walk away, but his father stabbed Oliver in the stomach before he could. Oliver pushed him back in reflex, saying the pain wasn’t like anything he’d ever felt, even with the broken jaw and busted up hip. His father slipped, tripped over a stool, fell back, hit his head just right on the bar and stopped moving completely.

“I panicked after that. Ran. And then I blacked out. The next thing I remember is waking up in my truck somewhere in Tennessee, about an hour away from where I lived. And I just… didn’t stop. I kept runnin’. And I’ve been runnin’ ever since. But I don’t… I don’t want to anymore. I want to be better and… kinder. I want to be who my little sister… I want to be who Cat would have wanted me to be.”

He positioned his fingers on the strings.

“So now that I’ve told you my entire life story, I wanted to play my sister’s favorite song. She… always said it was about finding happiness when things seemed dark and… I don’t know. I feel like that… fits. I want to find happiness with who I am and who I can be and… stop runnin’ from the past and quit hidin’ my memories of my sister. I’ve dealt with the pain and the mournin’ and… and I ain’t never gonna forget the way it felt the night she died. There’s a part of me that’s always, every second of every day, gonna feel that pain deep in my bones. But…” He gave a teary chuckle. “I know this sounds stupid. But when I was in that coma… I was with her. And she was… healthy and happy and was still playin’ soccer and dancin’ and she was with my damn stupid dog and he was runnin’ and floppin’ over in the shade and… and she was with her momma who loved her so goddamn much. I was with them for a while. And we talked a lot. And she…” He closed his eyes then, clearly trying to keep himself together. “I think I was in heaven with them. And she forgave me, told me I had to forgive myself. And… when I woke up, I… I decided to try.

“I’m joinin’ the marines when I leave here. If my hip heals the way it’s supposed to, I’m joinin’ the marines. I’m done actin’ like a… scared and broken little kid, like a damn selfish brat. It’s time for me ta be someone that I can be proud of and to… learn to be a man, have some order and some discipline. I think… I’m ready to live now that I almost died.”

He began strumming them, softly, carefully, as if the guitar was precious and fragile. But his voice, soft and smooth, deep and melodic, echoing through the room was enough to send chills down my spine.

I had to look up the lyrics for this song on Dr. Woods’ computer, but I wanted to get them right. This moment was too perfect, too beautiful, and much too cathartic to get wrong.

“Why are there so many songs about rainbows

and what's on the other side

Rainbows are visions

But only illusions

And rainbows have nothing to hide

So we've been told

And some choose to believe it

I know they're wrong, wait and see

Someday we'll find it

The rainbow connection

The lovers, the dreamers, and me

“Who said that every wish

Would be heard and answered

When wished on the morning star

Somebody thought of that

And someone believed it

And look what it's done so far

What's so amazing

That keeps us stargazing

And what do we think we might see

Someday we'll find it

The rainbow connection

The lovers, the dreamers, and me

“All of us under its spell, we know that it's probably magic

Have you been half asleep?

And have you heard voices?

I've heard them calling my name

Is this the sweet sound

That called the young sailors?

The voice might be one in the same

I've heard it too many times to ignore it

It's something that I'm supposed to be

Someday we'll find it

The rainbow connection

The lovers, the dreamers and me"

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singing-fangirl · 7 years

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Hockey Dads: A Check Please! Fanfiction

Five times Chowder referred to Bitty and Jack as his dads, and one time they became his hockey dads.

Read on AO3.

The moment the smell of cooked apples and maple crust started to drift through the Haus, hockey players would start to appear out of thin air in and around the kitchen, watching the kitchen timer in silence and waiting with bated breath as Bitty put on his oven mitts and slid the pie out of the oven and onto a cooling tray. He would bat away eager hands, urging them to wait at least a few minutes until the pie was cool enough to eat.

With midterms around the corner, Bitty’s pie-making capacity had been substantially increased, but not quite as much as the demand. Stressed hockey players were hungry hockey players, and Bitty was used to his pies disappearing before he could take off his oven mitts. As the various team members who were in the Haus that afternoon stood around, silently eating pie, Bitty noticed that today there was one piece left. He glanced around, trying to work out who it was that had been too absorbed in revision to notice the smell of freshly baked pie.

“Chowder?” He yelled, realising who it was. “Pie!”

There was a thundering on the stairs as Chowder bounded down, grinning as he skidded into the kitchen and took the last slice of pie.

“Thanks, Dad! You’re the best!”

And he ran back upstairs, plate in hand, unaware of what he’d just said.

“Did he just - ” said Dex.

“Yup,” said Nursey, absorbed in his pie.

Chowder had always been a lightweight, and the amount of drinking that the Samwell Men’s Hockey team did had in no way improved how much alcohol he could handle. It didn’t help, of course, that lots of the guys were from Canada and had been drinking legally before they even got to college, whereas Chowder had never had more than half a cup of anything before his freshman year.

As a junior, though, it was almost embarrassing how little alcohol – especially tub juice – it took him to be completely blackout. He’d barely lasted until midnight at their first kegster of the year, draping himself over the bottom steps of the stairs and loudly complimenting anyone who walked by.

“You okay there, buddy?”

He looked up blearily to see Bitty looking down at him, concerned, a pink flush in his cheeks the only thing indicating that he’d been drinking.

“I’m – I’m wonderful, Bitty,” Chowder said emphatically. “I saved a ton of goals today, did you see?!”

“Yes, I did,” Bitty laughed. “I’m on the team, remember? You were awesome.”

“’sawesome,” Chowder said determinedly. “That’s what you say at Sam-Samwell. ‘Sawesome.”

“Sure. You were ‘sawesome. Chowder, I think you should maybe go to bed, you seem pretty out of it.”

“I’m fine!” He insisted, but let Bitty pull him up, an arm around his ribs supporting him. “But – but bed sounds good. But the kegster?”

“The kegster’s nearly finished anyway,” Bitty said soothingly, lying through his teeth. “Oof, you’re heavy – Jack?”

Chowder hadn’t noticed Jack there (he hadn’t noticed anyone, really, not after the first cup of tub juice) but he grinned as Jack appeared.

“Jack! I miss you, Jack, you – you’re the best.”

“Thanks,” Jack said, light amusement in his voice. “Need a hand, Bits?”

“Please,” said Bitty. Bitty was by no means weak – he was surprisingly strong for his size – but sometimes you needed a professional athlete’s help to drag inebriated goalkeepers up the stairs.

Bitty and Jack whispered to each other over Chowder’s head as they helped him upstairs, the words washing straight over Chowder as he smiled at nothing in particular. He let himself be dragged into his room, insisting that he could get into his own bed before quickly proving them wrong as he stumbled over thin air. Bitty pulled back the covers as Jack helped Chowder lie down, Bitty taking his shoes off, Jack taking the trashcan from the corner and putting it by Chowder’s head, Bitty tucking the covers up under his chin.

“Sleep well,” Bitty said, amused as Chowder’s eyelids rapidly began to close.

“Thanks Dads,” Chowder mumbled as Jack and Bitty left the room, falling fast asleep before he could hear Jack’s stifled laughter and Bitty’s ‘Oh Lord, that boy’, from the other side of the door.

No one knew how the fight started. No one knew how the fights ever started, and neither did they care. It had become an accepted fact that, given the opportunity, Nursey would rile Dex up somehow and it would become an argument.

If it was anything after their usual morning-after-kegster arguments, Dex had accused Nursey of sleeping with a girl he’d had a crush on for literally hours. It was a tired argument by now, one they’d had many times, and everyone else had become accustomed to ignoring it.

For Chowder, though, this was the last straw. He’d woken up early, thrown up a few times in the trashcan someone had left by his bed, drunk some water from the bottles that he kept in his room for the purpose, and eventually trudged downstairs, head pounding, in search of food. Food was never a scarcity in the Haus, not with Bitty living there, and if the smell was anything to go by it was fresh waffles for breakfast.

So as he sat with Jack and Bitty at breakfast, both of whom were glancing at him in a way that was both awkward and endearing, the last thing he needed was to have to listen to an argument. Jack and Bitty didn’t seem fazed by it but the longer it went on the angrier Chowder got, his head pounding and his throat aching. He threw down his knife and fork with a clatter that he immediately regretted as it made his head ring, storming through to the still-messy living room where Dex and Nursey were standing across from each other and yelling.

“Stop it!” Chowder shouted, running his hands through his hair. To his surprise, his words had their intended effect; both Dex and Nursey turned to stare at him, amazed, before going right back to their argument. Chowder took a deep breath, trying to stop himself from getting too worked up, but his head was throbbing and it was just too much.

“Stop it or I’ll tell dads!!!” He yelled.

There was a silence in the entire Haus, punctuated only by the sound of Jack spitting his coffee out in the kitchen.

Suddenly feeling sick once again, Chowder ran back upstairs.

Jack and Bitty had never come out to Chowder, per se, but he wasn’t daft. He figured it out quickly enough, and after reassuring them that he wasn’t going to tell anyone any time soon they gradually became more comfortable around him, holding hands and occasionally cuddling or kissing each other on the cheek. Once the hockey season was over with finals rapidly approaching, Jack was spending more and more time at the Haus with Bitty, so much that he’d made it onto the chore rota.

It was unheard of for Bitty to leave a pie unattended. That, in itself, should have been warning enough. But as Chowder watched the kitchen timer tick closer and closer to zero with no sign of a baker to take the pie out of the oven, he ran to go and find Bitty, reassuring the other hungry and waiting hockey players that he wouldn’t be long and the pie would be safe.

In hindsight, he should have knocked.

“Oh my God!” He shouted, throwing his hands over his eyes and standing frozen in the doorway. “Oh my – oh my – ”

“Lord, Chowder, knock next time!” Bitty exclaimed, tugging a sheet over him and Jack, who had turned a brilliant shade of red.

“But you were – you were – ”

“Chowder, what are you still doing here?!”

“You, you’re, but you, you’re naked, your fingers, in Jack’s – ”

“What are you doing here?!”

“I know, I know, but the pie, it’s nearly done, and – ”

“And no one else is capable of taking a pie out of the oven? Sweet Jesus, have I taught you all nothing?!”

“Okay, okay, sorry Bitty, I’ll – I’ll take the pie out of the oven, I – I mean – ”

He dodged a pillow that Jack threw at him, still too embarrassed to speak a word.

“Okay, I’m leaving! I – have fun, use protection!”

“Chowder!”

“Yes, I – sorry, Bitty!”

He ran downstairs as fast as he could, wide eyes meeting the expectant faces of his teammates. He stood in silence for a second, looking like he was about to explode from humiliation, before blurting out “Dads were having sex!” and running out of the Haus, his face bright red.

“Does he mean Bitty and Jack?” asked Tango.

“Yes, Tango,” sighed Nursey, grabbing the oven mitts and taking the pie out of the oven.

Being a goalie was tough. There was no glory in it. You saved the goal, there was a momentary cheer, and everyone went back to concentrating on what the other players were doing. If you let a goal in, you were heckled by the opposition’s supporters, yelling ‘Sieve’ at you for what felt like hours every time they scored.

Even on games when he did well, when he made some spectacular saves and didn’t let a single puck through, the heckling could get hard to handle. Away games were the worst. Spending two out of the three periods a matter of feet away from the home team’s supporters wasn’t great for the morale, with students chanting ‘ugly goalie!’ every time he lifted his helmet up to take a drink of water, or yelling his name to try and distract him. Even the band would sing his name, the other supporters yelling ‘You suck!’.

It was really, really hard.

While the satisfaction of winning – and especially by such a landslide as they just did – took some of the edge off, sometimes he wanted nothing more than to have a hug from someone who would tell him that it was all okay.

He kept it together enough while they shook hands with the opposition after the team and went to the locker room, slapping each other on the backs in congratulations.

“Dude, I’m gonna go catch my dad real quick before he leaves, he’s driving back up to Vermont tonight,” said Whiskey. “I’ll be back soon, don’t go back without me?”

Chowder nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. He knew that for many of the players on the team, home was a long way away. Lots of people were from Canada, but even that was only a few hours’ drive away. San Francisco was three time zones away, and a whole other world. If it hadn’t been for the fact that all of the best hockey scholarships were in New England, Chowder would never have gone so far away, and right now, when all he wanted was a hug, he had never felt so far from home.

“Hey, Chowder, you okay?”

He hadn’t realised that everyone else had gone into the showers until he looked up to see Bitty standing there alone, looking concerned.

Chowder stood up and threw his arms around Bitty, relaxing as Bitty hugged him back.

“Thanks, Dad,” he said, not even caring.

+1.

“Isn’t he just the cutest?”

“Bro, he looks exactly like you!”

“Ew, he’s licking me!”

“Ha, he’s chewing the sofa! Or at least, what’s left of it after that last kegster, amiright?”

“He’s wicked fast, bro.”

“Bitty, how the hell did you find a puppy that somehow looks like both you and Jack?”

Bitty grinned, picking up the eager puppy that was causing havoc across the Haus. “We just went to the shelter in Providence and, well, he was the one!” He scratched the puppy behind the ears, giggling as it licked his chin.

“Bruh, this puppy is so fucking adorable,” said Shitty, taking the puppy from Bitty and stroking it. “What’s he called?”

“Carter,” Jack grinned, the puppy jumping from Shitty’s arms and bounding into his lap. “Bitty suggested it, I thought it was adorable.”

Lardo raised her eyebrows at Bitty, who mouthed ‘He has no idea’ at her.

It was strange, Chowder thought, to have them all back; Shitty, Lardo, Holster, Ransom, and Jack. Combined with Bitty’s parents, it had to be the biggest crowd one person has ever been allowed to have at graduation. He suspected bribery with pies was involved at some point.

“He’s such a sweetheart,” said Mrs Bittle. “Oh, I can’t believe my little boy is all grown up! Living with his boyfriend, and now you’ve got a dog of your own, and you’re graduating…”

“Calm down, mama,” Bitty laughed. “I know what you’re leading up to, and the answer to the grandchildren question is the same as it was the last time you asked.”

Mrs Bittle rolled her eyes. “Well, I suppose a grandpuppy will do for now.”

Chowder stood up quickly, going into the kitchen and taking another piece of pie, not even bothering to find a fork to eat it with.

“Chowder?”

He looked up. Jack was in the doorway, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Hey, Jack,” Chowder sighed.

“Everything okay?” Jack leant against the counter, eating his own slice of pie.

Chowder shrugged. “You know… you’re gone… and now Bitty’s gone… and you’ve got a dog, and…”

Jack only stood there, silently. He was good at doing that.

“I’ll miss you,” Chowder finished, rubbing at his eyes.

“If you think Bitty isn’t going to be here every other week with a pie delivery…” Jack started. “Apart from anything else, I’ll make him come here with the extras, because there’s no way I can eat it all. And we’ll come down for any game we can, you know that.”

“I know,” Chowder sighed. “It’s not the same, though.”

Jack thought for a few seconds, the pieces starting to fall together in his head. “You know, Chowder… Bitty and I can still be your hockey dads. If you want.”

“Really?” Chowder sniffed.

“Really. And you don’t have to worry about Carter, just because we have a dog doesn’t mean we love you guys any less.”

Chowder smiled. “Thanks. And – hey – you do know Bitty named him after Beyoncé, right?”

Jack’s jaw dropped open slightly, his shock only slightly offset by amusement. “You mean – he – Carter is – well. I suppose it’s – not a bad name, and he is used to it now.”

“Save it,” Chowder advised. “You never know when you’ll need one up on Dad.”

#5+1 fic #omgcheckplease #check please #check please fanfic #omgcheckplease fanfiction #jack zimmermann #eric bittle #chowder #chris chow

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